Pre-fermentation of rice flour for improving the cooking quality of extruded instant rice

Extruded instant rice (EIR) could not maintain an intact grain morphology during cooking, which seriously affected its cooking quality. The problem was solved by pre-fermentation of rice flour for 5-10 days. Consequently, the cooking loss was significantly reduced, while the hardness, stickiness and water absorption of EIR were significantly increased. The mechanism was that the gel network of EIR was strengthened by the following ways: (1) pre-fermentation significantly increased the total starch and amylose contents of rice flour due to the dissolution or leaching of lipids, ash and soluble proteins into the fermentation broth; (2) pre-fermentation degraded the amorphous region of starch granules by enzymes and organic acids, resulting in a molecular structure with lower polydispersity index and molecular weight, and higher proportion of long- and ultra-long branched chains of amylopectin. This kind of molecular structure was conducive to the formation of ordered double helix structures and strong gel network.