It can be difficult to get the perfect texture for a pasta noodle. Different recipes call for different amounts of salt to be added, and noodles can take different times to cook. Sometimes noodles will stick to each other.
Researchers from the United States studied how pasta becomes sticky as it takes up water. They combined pasta parameters, such as expansion, bending rigidity, and water content, to solve a variety of equations to form a theoretical model for the swelling dynamics of starch materials.
The main work of the lab was studying the fluid structure interaction of fibers, hairs and elastic structures, and exploring the properties of noodles was a straightforward pivot from that.
He said that over the last few years, they joked about how pasta noodle adhesion is related to their work.
The idea gained traction when the Pandemic hit, and students and postdocs started working on it at home and in the lab.
The noodles come together when they are lifted by a fork. This gave them an idea of how water-driven hygroscopic swelling affects pasta.
As pasta was cooked, the relative rate of the noodle's increase in girth exceeded the rate of lengthening by a ratio of 3.5 to 1 until it reached the firm texture of al dente.
As pasta is pulled from liquid, the liquid surface energy creates a meniscus that sticks noodles to one another, balancing the elastic resistance from bending the noodles and aided by the surface tension of the liquid.
The degree to which a noodle was cooked was related to the length of the portion.
The time to reach al dente can be different depending on how much salt is added to the boiling water.
The group's work inspired others to find simple methods for studying soft materials and looked to investigate the role of salt in swelling.
More information: Jonghyun Hwang et al, Swelling, softening, and elastocapillary adhesion of cooked pasta, Physics of Fluids (2022). DOI: 10.1063/5.0083696 Journal information: Physics of Fluids Citation: Physics models better define what makes pasta 'al dente' (2022, April 13) retrieved 13 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-physics-pasta-al-dente.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
