Abstract
Improving our national food self-sufficiency ratio is a big issue in Japan, and increasing use of domestic wheat is one of the effective means. We have conducted studies for increased use of domestic wheat. Saitama prefecture has three wheat varieties for noodles and one variety for bread. “Norin61” (N61), a popular wheat cultivar for making Japanese Udon noodles, remains a perennial favorite because of its sensory characteristics, including its unique taste and flavor compared with Australian Standard White (ASW). Currently, N61 is being replaced by “Satonosora”, which is one of the successors of N61. Satonosora has good disease resistance, good color and crop yield like ASW but is inferior in Udon making and has less unique taste and flavor compared with N61. “Ayahikari” is one of the low-amylose wheat varieties, and it gives a glutinous texture for noodles. Ayahikari and Satonosora give good color to noodles, but color fading of boiled Udon is observed. “Hanamanten” is a wheat variety for bread cultivated in Saitama.
The noodle-making quality of N61, Ayahikari and satonosora is inferior to that of ASW because of the weakness of Gluten formed in the noodle dough. Glutenin unextracted with Sodium Dodecyl-Sulfate (SDS) solution contributes to the improvement in noodle-making quality. Hanamanten includes a lot of glutenin unextracted in SDS solution. An addition of Hanamanten to N61, Ayahikari and Satonosora improved the Udon making process. From observation of boiled noodles using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and the fluorescence microscope, it was shown that the characteristics of the gluten affected not only the noodle-making process but also the texture of boiled noodles.
Hanamanten had an uneven gluten component ratio (gliadin/glutenin), therefore, it was difficult to make bread using only Hanamanten. Meanwhile, the gluten component ratio of Ayahikari was higher than Hanamanten. Blending Hanamanten and Ayahikari had a good effect for ease of bread-making.
Color fading of boiled Udon using Ayahikari was one of the issues. It was caused by Lipoxygenase (LOX) included in wheat flour. Some antioxidative ingredients such as ferulic acid trapped lipid radicals and inhibited the degradation of lutein. An addition of these antioxidative ingredients improved the color fading of boiled Udon.
We carried out an investigation about the taste and flavor of Udon. The result showed the existence of a preference between N61 and ASW. And also, the results of the sensory evaluation showed these differences.
Ongoing studies on the use of domestic wheat may lead to increased use and improve our national food self-sufficiency ratio.
