Effect of cooking temperature on cooked pasta quality and sustainability

Everyday pasta cooking has a large environmental impact. The aims of this work were to assess the effect of cooking temperatures (T_C ) that were lower than the water boiling point (T_BW ) on the main chemico-physical quality parameters of two pasta shapes (i.e., ziti and spaghetti) cooked at the conventional and minimum water-to-pasta ratios, as well as their optimum cooking time (OCT), cooking energy consumption, and carbon footprint, by using a novel eco-sustainable pasta cooker.

Once the effect of T_C on OCT had been modeled in accordance with the Bigelow model, it was possible to estimate that the energy saved to heat the cooking water from ambient temperature to a lower temperature than T_BW was smaller than the extra energy needed to complete the pasta cooking phase. After several cooking trials, the water uptake, cooking loss, textural properties, and thickness of the central nerve (as observed with a scanning electronic microscope) of cooked pasta were found to be independent of T_C in the range of 85-98 °C.

By using smaller amounts of water (~3 L kg^-1 ) and cooking at 85 °C with the eco-sustainable pasta cooker, the energy consumption reduced from the default value of 2.8 kWh kg^-1 to ~0.45 kWh kg^-1 and GHG emissions to about one sixth of those resulting from the use of the average European home appliances. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.