Impact of eggs and egg fractions on quality of fresh egg noodles

Egg noodles are popular in North-America and Western-Europe. They are made from wheat flour, eggs and salt. Even though eggs are often added to enhance flavor, color, nutritional value and texture of noodles, the precise impact of eggs and egg fractions on noodle quality and the underlying mechanisms thereof remain to be studied. We here produced noodles with different protein sources: fresh whole eggs, lyophilized whole eggs, egg white, egg yolk and wheat gluten. All noodles had the same protein and moisture content and ratio of flour-to-egg protein. Noodles containing egg white and gluten had a higher optimal cooking time, i.e. the time needed to gelatinize all starch, than those without egg. Increased protein network formation impeded water imbibition and hence increased optimal cooking time. Noodles containing whole egg or egg yolk had the lowest optimal cooking time. Egg lipids probably hinder protein network formation thereby facilitating water imbibition. Increased cooking time resulted in increased noodle water absorption and cooking loss. In egg white noodles, the fast formation of a covalent protein network increased cooking loss even more than in gluten noodles. The kieffer-rig extensibility of whole egg noodles was similar to (cv. Paragon) or higher than (cv. Claire) that of egg white noodles and higher than that of egg yolk noodles. As underlying mechanism, a combination of disulfide bonds and ionic interactions between different protein sources is suggested.status: publishe