Corn Starch Incorporated Gomatofu: Textural and Sensory Quality

Abstract

Gomatofu is a traditional Japanese food and is one of the mixed gels consisting of kudzu (arrowroot) starch and sesame. In this study, an attempt has been made to replace the kudzu starch with corn starch. Central composite rotatable design (CCRD) of response surface methodology was used to optimize the level of independent variables viz., sesame oil (1.5-3.5g/100 ml sesame milk), corn starch (90–110g/100g defatted sesame flour) and water content (330-350 ml/100g defatted sesame flour). Five responses, i.e. hardness, springiness, gumminess, chewiness and overall acceptability were evaluated. Hardness of gomatofu ranged between 0.85 to 3.62 N, springiness, 0.45 -1.82 mm, gumminess 0.26 -2.48 N and chewiness from 0.16 to 4.52 Nmm. Overall acceptability of gomatofu samples ranged between 5.3- 8.5. The effect of all the independent factors was significant on all the responses. Both oil and water content inversely correlated with all the responses while, the effect of corn starch was positive. The interaction effect of oil and corn starch was positive on hardness and overall acceptability, while negative on springiness, gumminess and chewiness. The optimized formulation contained sesame oil 2.2 ml/100 ml sesame milk, corn starch 99.9 g/100g defatted sesame flour and water 1001.3 ml/ 100g defatted sesame flour. Corn starch incorporated optimized gomatofu had protein 7.5, fat 10.9, ash 1.1 and carbohydrate 80.53 % (db).