Cooking behavior of frozen gluten-free potato-based pasta (gnocchi) obtained through turbo cooking technology

- The cooking quality of potato-based pasta is mainly affected by the formulation.
- The turbo cooking technology helps in structuring the dough.
- The water amount used in the formulation is a critical parameter.
- Corn and rice flour ratio affects the textural properties of potato-based pasta.

Gnocchi is a potato-based pasta containing, besides potato or potato derivatives, soft wheat flour, making them unsuitable for people suffering from celiac disease or gluten intolerance. The purpose of this work was to investigate some conditions of gluten-free (GF) gnocchi production in order to enhance the quality of the final products. The GF gnocchi were produced by turbo cooking technology. The variables studied were corn:rice flour ratios (from 1:0.33 to 1:1.96), amounts of dried potatoes (13 and 31 g/100 g of the flour mixture), amounts of water (from 53 to 65 g/100 g of the total formulation), and process temperatures (85 and 93 °C). Two traditional and one GF commercial samples were used as references. The resultant gnocchi showed lower weight increases (0.4-0.7 times) and higher cooking losses (1.4-4.1 times) than the traditional references, while cooking losses were lower in comparison to the GF commercial sample (0.3-0.9 times). The amounts of water and the corn and rice flour ratios used in the formulation affected the texture of the cooked product to a greater extent than the processing temperature. The results of this study demonstrate the possibility of obtaining GF gnocchi characterized by quality descriptors very similar to those of traditional gnocchi containing wheat flour.