Dehydrated powdered spinach, commercially named “flour spinach”, is the main ingredient of green pasta. In Italy it is used to prepare lasagna, tagliatelle or tomake spinach fillings.
But what do we mean when we refer to the dehydrated powdered spinach? How can we get a good product? We have to say that there is not an optimal variety of spinach to be dehydrated, although hybrid varieties tend to be favoured. Genetics has also tried to obtain plants more disease-resistant and better suited to meet industrial needs. But currently a “perfect variety” has not been created yet.
Let’s understand the processing to get a real good product
So, the first problem is to identify the most suitable variety for processing. This, with regard to spinach’s optimal criteria that – for both dehydrators and freezers – are high dry substance and chlorophyll content. It is also difficult to choose the leaf: blistered, semi-blistered or smooth? Blistered leaves have higher dry substance that make drying easier, whereas the smooth ones allow for a better cleaning.
to be continued…
