Dynamic shape changes of dried pasta during cooking via designed surface grooves

The morphing of food during gastronomic treatments is of current interest not only for product innovation and unprecedented human-food sensory interaction but also for sustainable reasons because it would enable to increase the load saturation for food packages with several positive environmental impacts. A shape changing pasta during cooking has been achieved through designed grooves and protrusions on one side of the samples. However, a quantitative understanding of the effects of manufacturing and drying process on the shape morphing is still missing. Here, three pressures applied on the surface of the samples and three thicknesses of the sheeted dough have been analyzed for their effect on the dehydration kinetics of pasta, microstructure properties, water absorption and the kinetic of bending during cooking. Results proved the effectiveness of the proposed strategy to activate the morphing of dried pasta during cooking. The dehydration rates were primarily affected by the thickness of the sheeted dough while the applied pressure did not modify the dehydration kinetics of samples of 1.5 and 1 mm thick. 2D microCT images revealed that by using a constant pressure, the grooves were deeper as sheeted doughs were thick; the greater amount of dough permitted much more upward expansion between the teeth of the plastic stamp leading to higher protrusions/deeper grooves. The rehydration rate was mainly controlled by the height of the remaining layers below the grooves while the pressures applied did not affect the rate of the water absorption over time. The kinetic of bending during cooking was satisfactorily described by using a sigmoidal mathematical model. Results proved that the speed of bending was mainly affected by the thickness of the sheeted dough while the applied pressures affected the speed of bending only for the thinner samples of 1.5 and 1 mm thick while the thicker samples folded at the same speed with no changes among the pressure applied.