A Gluten-Free Food: Tarhana with Chestnut

Abstract

Tarhana is a traditional fermented Turkish food. It’s produced by mixing yoghurt, wheat flour, yeast, salt, and some raw and cooked vegetables such as onions, tomatoes, green and red peppers and spices such as mint, paprika, basil, dill followed by lactic and alcoholic fermentation. The fermentation may occur in a period from one to seven days. In this study, instead of wheat flour, gluten-free corn flour and chestnut flour were used to produce tarhana for celiac patients, and the acceptability of the tarhana was evaluated. Tarhana production was carried out by using the mixtures of corn flour and chestnut flour in five rates (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%). Tarhana samples were fermented for 48 h. The color, pH, titratable acidity values of tarhana samples were analyzed at the beginning (0 h) and the end (48 h) of the fermentation. The tarhana samples were dried to <6% moisture content at 50°C and 0.5 m s-1 air velocity after fermentation. The dry matter, color, pH, titratable acidity values were determined in dried tarhana samples, and the sensory and viscosity analysis were done in the tarhana soups. According to the physical, chemical and sensory analysis, the acceptability of the samples was evaluated. While chestnut flour ratio increased, a*, pH and acidity of the samples increased, L* and b* values decreased significantly (p<0.05). The viscosity values at 60°C increased when compared with the control group. The points of the sensorial parameters were decreased with the increase of chestnut flour concentration. The overall acceptability point of control tarhana was 9.4 over 10 point, and in all other samples the points were over the 7.5. It was concluded that the chestnut flour is suitable for tarhana production with or without adding corn flour. © 2018 International Society for Horticultural Science. All Rights Reserved.