Characterization of Two Chickpea Varieties and the Effect of Cooking on their Physico-chemical and Functional Properties of Flours

Abstract

Considering the nutritional and functional characteristics of chickpea, flours of two varieties of chickpea (“Blanco Noroeste” and “Costa 2004”) were prepared to know the effect of cooking. Thus the objective of this study was to compare their physicochemical and functional properties in both, raw and cooked flours. Physical properties of the grain, for the two varieties were similar, whereas the physicochemical and functional properties of the flours exhibited differences as a function of the variety and the processing. The chickpea cooked flours showed lower lightness and higher redness and yellowness with respect to raw flours. The proximal composition of cooked flours presented significant differences in fat (5.98% - 6.09%) and moisture contents (0.48% - 0.54%) with respect to raw flours. The particle size distribution determined for the raw and cooked flours samples, indicated a unimodal behavior with a wide distribution. The water absorption capacity and oil capacity showed significant difference among flour varieties. For pasting properties, a higher viscosity was measured for Costa 2004 (380 cP) and Blanco Noroeste (272 cP) raw flours, raw flour exhibited better pasting properties than cooked flours.