HS-SPME/GC-MS Method to Characterise the Flavour of Italian Pasta: Potential Application to Assess the Quality of the Products

Impact of semolina-barley mixture on the volatolomic profile of dough and pasta: characterization by a multivariate chemometric approach

BACKGROUND

Barley flour, known to be rich in various phytochemicals, has been demonstrated to improve the technological and nutritional properties of pasta; however, its volatile profile, on which its aromatic properties depend, also plays an important role in the acceptance of barley-enriched pasta. In the present work, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of semolina doughs enriched with different percentages of barley and of the related pasta were characterized by solid phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) coupled to gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and evaluated using a multivariate statistical approach, including principal component analysis (PCA), cluster heatmaps, Pearson's and Spearman's correlations, and partial least squares correlation (PLSC).

RESULTS

The effects of single raw materials, and their interactions, were studied to establish their importance in the volatile profile of the samples, and the correlation between the dough VOCs and the processed product VOCs was assessed. The presence of barley flour markedly affected the volatile profile in comparison with the dough obtained with only durum wheat. For alcohols, esters, terpenes, and some aldehydes there was a clear correlation with the percentage of barley. For some of the VOCs, on the other hand, a strong dependence on the ingredients interaction effect due to the mixing stage has been demonstrated.

CONCLUSION

The heatmaps allowed a good graphical visualization of the relationship between molecules and barley percentage, offering the possibility to select the best one according to the desired volatolomic footprint. Pasta with 40% of barley was demonstrated to give pasta with the most complex volatile profile. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Mass spectrometry-based electronic nose to authenticate 100% Italian durum wheat pasta and characterization of volatile compounds

Headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled with mass spectrometry-based electronic nose (MS-eNose), in combination with multivariate statistical analysis was used as untargeted method for the rapid authentication of 100% Italian durum wheat pasta. Among the tested classification models, i.e. PCA-LDA, PLS-DA and SVMc, SVMc provided the highest accuracy results in both calibration (90%) and validation (92%) processes. Potential markers discriminating pasta samples were identified by HS-SPME/GC-MS analysis. Specifically, the content of a pattern of 8 out of 59 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) was significantly different between samples of 100% Italian durum wheat pasta and pasta produced with durum wheat of different origins, most of which were related to different lipidic oxidation in the two classes of pasta. The proposed MS-eNose method is a rapid and reliable tool to be used for authenticating Italian pasta useful to promote its typicity and preserving consumers from fraudulent practices.

Effects of thermal treatments on durum wheat pasta flavour during production process: A modelling approach to provide added-value to pasta dried at low temperatures

Pasta is a key element of the Mediterranean Diet and it has been declared by Unesco intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Despite seems a simple food, only made of semolina and water, pasta is produced following a multi-step process that strongly affect the final product. Drying stage is the one that has the greater influence on its organoleptic/nutritional characteristics. This study aimed to analyse the flavour of pasta to test whether the different drying treatments (High Temperature-Short time or Low Temperature-Long time) have a direct impact on its composition and consequently whether they could influence the end-product quality. The headspace solid-phase microextraction was optimized using an experimental design and 52 samples were analysed by HS-SPME/GC-MS and classified by PLS-DA. The resulting classification model (validated by repeated double cross-validation and permutation tests) allowed correctly predicting more than 80% of samples, confirming that drying may have a significant impact on pasta flavour.

Detection of flavor compounds in longissimus muscle from four hybrid pig breeds of Sus scrofa, Bamei pig, and Large White

To detect the flavor quality and flavor compounds in raw longissimus muscle from four typical pig breeds: Sus scrofa × Bamei pig named F1 (group A), F1 × F1 (group B), F1 × Bamei pig (group C), and F1 × Large White (group D). The chemical compositions of longissimus muscles from four breeds were examined using headspace solid-phase microextraction/gas chromatography mass spectrometry method. Distinct differences for the same flavor compounds of longissimus muscles between different breeds were analyzed. Totally 64 flavor compounds shared in four groups, and 10 flavor compounds with significant difference among four groups (p < 0.05), including allyl butyrate, (Z)-2-penten-1-ol, 2,2-dimethyl-3-methyl oxirane, 2-pentylfuran, dodecane, 2,4-decadienal, vinylsilane, 3-methyl-1-butanol, (1-methyldecyl)-benzene, and dipropyl phthalate. Totally, 23–41 flavor compounds did not commonly exist in four groups, such as only as dibutyl isophthalate in group A; 6,10-dimethyl-5-9-undecadien-2 one, bis (2-trimethylsilyl) ethyl ester-malonic acid, heptadecane, 2,4,6-trimethyl pyridine, and diisooctyl adipate in group C alone; and 1,3-dimethylcyclopentanol, 2-octanone, and trimethylsilane in group D alone. While, no specific flavor compounds were identified in group B. All these flavor compounds covered 12 types of hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, hydroxybenzenes, acids, ketones, esters, sulfides, furans, alkenes, and pyrrole. Besides, we analyzed 14 flavor compounds with different flavors combining with previous studies. The flavor compounds in longissimus muscles might be closely related to the breeds, and the hybrid of S. scrofa × Bamei pig had the most flavor compounds in raw longissimus muscle.