Method of making pre-cooked filled pasta products by co-extrusion
AssigneeCPC International Inc.
InventorsDavid P. Huang, Thomas Merolla
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for preparing quick cooking and precooked filled pasta products by preconditioning a blend of a starch material with steam and small amounts of an internal lubricant to produce a semi-moist and partially cooked blend which is cooked and cooled under controlled conditions in a co-rotating twin screw extruder with low shear screw configuration and then co-extruded into the final filled pasta product by extruding the blend through a die, and cutting the extrudate, which may then be dried or otherwise processed.
Claims6
A method of producing pre-cooked pasta comprising the steps of extruding an elongate pre-cooked pasta shell which contains a pre-cooked filler material;
- advancing the extruded pasta shell along a predetermined path;
- partitioning the pasta shell into pasta segments each having axial ends and shaping each segment to have a predetermined configuration and sealing the axial ends to capture the filler material within each segment of the pasta shell;
- and drying the segments.
A method of producing a filler pre-cooked pasta product comprising the steps of co-extruding an elongate pre-cooked pasta shell and a pre-cooked filler material to make a filled elongate pasta;
- advancing the filled elongate pasta shell along a predetermined path;
- partitioning the filled elongate pasta shell into filled pasta segments each having axial ends and shaping each segment to have a predetermined configuration and sealing the axial ends to capture the filler material within each segment of the pasta shell;
- and drying the segments.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.