Chemistry of Food and Cooking "Lots of Pasta-bilities"
How does the ingredient you experimented with affect the food's overall characteristics?
In flour, gluten is the substance that allows your dough to rise and have an elastic texture. My test was between all purpose flour and gluten free flour, I tested to see which would have the best texture taste and strength. The gluten free flour affected all of those characteristics. I made the exact same recipe two different times with the two different flours. I made both of the doughs, the all purpose dough turned out perfectly fine. It had an elastic texture, it was smooth and was easy to manipulate. The gluten free flour had the consistency of play dough but a bit more grainy. This is also why most homemade pasta recipes call for eggs. Eggs cook when they get hot so adding them to pasta allows them to cook a little bit when you put them in the water. This also goes for the gluten free pasta. The lack of eggs prevented both of the pastas from fulling cooking. The gluten free pasta also had no gluten to it couldn't rise or stretch and having no gluten and no eggs made it not cook at all. I managed to cut it into strips and cook it but once it was done it was the same texture just more sticky.
The lack of gluten in the flour also resulted in a weird taste, most people did not want to try the pasta but the few who did said it was a dry "carpet" taste where as the all purpose flour tastes more normal, still, they both had a weird texture. As for strength, even though they had no eggs, the all purpose flour pasta held up really well. It was the right amount of stretchy, it was easy to work with and it wouldn't break very easily. As for the gluten free, it broke if you even laid eyes on it. I managed to roll it out and cut it into strips but it was sticking to the table and I could barley get the strips into a bowl with out it breaking. Overall, I think that there are specific recipes catered towards gluten free that are very different from normal flour recipes and I do think it would work out if you did it the right way, as for normal flour, I truly think it would have worked out if I had used eggs instead of just water.
How did the cooking process transform your food macroscopically?
Macroscopically, it is very easy to tell which pasta was which. The gluten free was clearly very grainy and almost was a little bit green, the all purpose was a normal yellow-y pasta color. It didn't change much once I cooked it, they were both a bit more tacky looking and softer but the color was still there.
In flour, gluten is the substance that allows your dough to rise and have an elastic texture. My test was between all purpose flour and gluten free flour, I tested to see which would have the best texture taste and strength. The gluten free flour affected all of those characteristics. I made the exact same recipe two different times with the two different flours. I made both of the doughs, the all purpose dough turned out perfectly fine. It had an elastic texture, it was smooth and was easy to manipulate. The gluten free flour had the consistency of play dough but a bit more grainy. This is also why most homemade pasta recipes call for eggs. Eggs cook when they get hot so adding them to pasta allows them to cook a little bit when you put them in the water. This also goes for the gluten free pasta. The lack of eggs prevented both of the pastas from fulling cooking. The gluten free pasta also had no gluten to it couldn't rise or stretch and having no gluten and no eggs made it not cook at all. I managed to cut it into strips and cook it but once it was done it was the same texture just more sticky.
The lack of gluten in the flour also resulted in a weird taste, most people did not want to try the pasta but the few who did said it was a dry "carpet" taste where as the all purpose flour tastes more normal, still, they both had a weird texture. As for strength, even though they had no eggs, the all purpose flour pasta held up really well. It was the right amount of stretchy, it was easy to work with and it wouldn't break very easily. As for the gluten free, it broke if you even laid eyes on it. I managed to roll it out and cut it into strips but it was sticking to the table and I could barley get the strips into a bowl with out it breaking. Overall, I think that there are specific recipes catered towards gluten free that are very different from normal flour recipes and I do think it would work out if you did it the right way, as for normal flour, I truly think it would have worked out if I had used eggs instead of just water.
How did the cooking process transform your food macroscopically?
Macroscopically, it is very easy to tell which pasta was which. The gluten free was clearly very grainy and almost was a little bit green, the all purpose was a normal yellow-y pasta color. It didn't change much once I cooked it, they were both a bit more tacky looking and softer but the color was still there.