Sea cucumber, Stichopus japonicas, is widely used in East Asia as a traditional medical component for the treatment of asthma, arthritis, and sinus congestion. The hydrolysate of sea cucumber after treating with a protease is also widely used as an ingredient for the processed food application such as noodles. Tensile force and deformation are important texture properties of noodle. The peptides prepared by hydrolyzing sea cucumber could affect the tensile properties of noodle as well as DPPH radical scavenging. The objectives of this study were to characterize the tensile properties, the texture properties, color, and DPPH radical scavenging of noodle with the hydrolysate of sea cucumber and to determine an optimum formulation of dough with the hydrolysate of sea cucumber for noodle. The hydrolysate of sea cucumber was prepared by hydrolyzing dried sea cucumber powder with distilled water and a protease, Protamex (Novozyme Nordisk, Bagsvaerd, Denmark). Tensile test was used for measuring the breaking strength and the breaking distance of noodle. The tensile properties and antioxidant activity (DPPH radical scavenging) were used as major constraint functions for the optimization. Central composite design was used to determine the experimental points for the optimization. Quadratic models were developed to represent the constraint functions. The optimum ratio was determined to flour: water: the hydrolysate of sea cucumber = 69.27: 22.48: 7.05% (w/w). Increasing the amount of hydrolysate of sea cucumber in the formulation increased the tensile force but no significant difference was observed in the deformation. The hydrolysate of sea cucumber was successfully applied to a noodle formulation without degrading the major quality indices of noodle with enhancing the antioxidant activities.

Sea cucumber (SC) or Stichopus japonicas is widely used in East Asia as a traditional medical component for the treatment of asthma, arthritis, and sinus congestion. The hydrolysate of SC (HSC) after treatment with a protease is also widely used as an ingredient for processed food application such as noodles. Tensile force and deformation are important texture properties of noodle. The peptides prepared by hydrolyzing SC could affect the tensile properties of noodle, as well as DPPH radical scavenging. The objectives of this study were to characterize the tensile properties, the texture properties, color, and DPPH radical scavenging of noodle with HSC and to determine an optimum formulation of dough with HSC for noodle. The HSC was prepared by hydrolyzing dried SC powder with distilled water (DW) and a protease, Protamex (Novozyme Nordisk, Bagsvaerd, Danmark). The tensile properties and antioxidant activity were used as major constraint functions for the optimization. The optimum ratio was determined as flour:water:HSC=69.27:22.48:7.05 (w/w). Increasing the amount of HSC in the formulation increased the tensile force but no significant difference was observed in the deformation.