The influence of cooking water contents on retention of minerals and
cooking quality parameters of spaghetti prepared from durum semolina, wheat flour
and their blends (1; 1) were investigated by using four cooking watel'$ (A1-Remayah,
-Berbees, tap water and distilled water) varying in mineral composltlon, Cooking water
analYSis confirmed that Belbees and A1-Remayah well waters contained considerable
amounts of sodium and calcium being 265 and 208 ppm for sodium and 52.7 and 32.7
ppm for calcium, r~specttvely. Semolina Sohag-containing spaghetti exhibited higher
contents of iron and manganese. Type of cooking water and type of spaghetti
samples show significant correlations to iron, manganese and copper contents,
meanwhile, no significant interactions between the type of cooking waters and type of
spaghetti could be detected on the potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium,
phosphorus and zinc contents of cooked spaghetti. A significant interaction of type of
'coo~ing waters and type of spaghetti were observed for swelling index(SI), cooking
weight (CW) and cooking loss (CL). The alkalinity of the Belbees and Al-Remayaha
water did not appear to affect the quality of the products such as (SI) snd (CW),
however, adversely effect was noticed for the (CL) for samples cooked In Belbees
water. Wheat flour-containing spaghetti exhibited the same improvement in (51) and
(CW). The overall acceptability by sensory evaluation correlated significantly with
source of cooking water and type of blends. Finally, this research, required further
studies to allow more complete understanding of the general relationships shown.