Gluten-free noodle made from gathotan (an Indonesian fungal fermented cassava) flour: cooking quality, textural, and sensory properties

Gathotan is fermented cassava originated from Java, Indonesia. Its cooked form has very chewy tsxture. We examined gelatination profile of gathotan flour, and apply it on the making of gathotan noodle. A factorial design consisting two factors were applied. First factor was proportion of water in pre-gelatinised flour, having three levels (flour:water were 1:6, 1:7, and 1:8). The second factor was proportion of gathotan flour over pre-gelatinised flour, with three levels (pre-gelatinised:gathotan flour were 5:5, 5:5.5, and 5:6). Cooking time, cooking loss, and water absorption, hardness, and adhesieveness were determined using standard methods. A hedonic test was performed by employing 20 untrained panelists to score their preference for colour, aroma, taste, mouth feel, and overall preference. Results showed that hardness of the noodle ranged from 5860 to 5957 g, and was affected significantly by proportion of water or flour. Higher proportion of flour resulted in higher hardness. Similarly, adhesiveness of the noodle ranged from -937.6 to -1461 g, was also affected by either water or flour proportion. The more flour used in the dough, the more adhesive the noodle. Sensory test results showed that either factor did not affect significantly (P 0,05) panelists’ preference for all the characteristics examined. Further evaluation using partial least square regression method showed that the main predictor affected overall preference for gathotan noodle was mouth feel, followed by preference for aroma.