Solid state fermentation (SSF) represents a technological alternative for a great variety of legumes and cereals, or combinations of them, to improve their nutritional quality and to obtain edible products with palatable sensorial characteristics. Chickpeas (Cicer arietinum L.) are prone to develop the hardening phenomenon, also known as hard-to-cook (HTC) defect, when stored under adverse conditions of high temperature (≥ 25 °C) and high relative humidity (≥ 65%). This hard-to-cook phenomenon causes increases in cooking time, decreases in nutritional quality and deterioration of sensorial attributes of chickpea. The objective of this work was to study the effect of SSF on chemical composition and nutritional quality of fresh and hardened chickpeas. The hardening of chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L. Blanco Sinaloa 92 variety) for human consumption, was produced by accelerated storage (33-35 °C, RH = 75%, 180 days). A Rhizopus stolonifer spore suspension (1 x 106 spores/mL) was used as starter for the fermentation. The temperature and time of the SSF process were 35.8 °C and 42.7 h, respectively. The tempeh was obtained from fresh and hardened chickpea. The SSF process caused a significant increase ( p ≤ 0.05) in crude protein, true protein (19.6-19.9 to 23.2-23.4%), protein solubility, in vitro digestibility (68.6-73.1% to 79.9-80.5%), available lysine (2.19-3.04 to 3.19-4.07 g lysine/ 16 N), palmitic acid, and stearic acid, and a significant decrease ( p ≤ 0.05) in lipids, minerals, linoleic acid, phytic acid (8.82-10.73 to 2.11 g phytic acid/g dry matter), and tannins (16.1-22.4 to 3 mg catechin/g dry matter). The SSF process improved significantly the quality of fresh and hardened chickpea.
Effect of foliar nutrition on growth, yield and quality of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)
