EFFECT OF PUFFING ON PHYSICO- CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF CHICKPEA

The Chickpea or Bengal gram or gram (Cicer arietinum) is an annual legume that belongs to the family Fabaceae. Chickpea is a remarkable legume known for its potent phenolic compounds, which offer strong antioxidant, anti-mutagenic, and anti-genotoxic benefits, It is consumed due to abundance of carbohydrates, proteins, essential amino acids, minerals, and dietary fiber. puffing leads to a higher puffing index, improved crispiness and volume and enhanced texture of Chickpea. For preparation of Puffed Chickpea, grains were preheated at 1500C for 30 sec, the preheated grains were tempered for 7 hrs of tempering time, after tempering the grains were dipped in water for 20 sec and then the grains were puffed at 1600C. The physical (viz., length, width, thickness, AMD, GMD, SMD, EQD, Surface Area of Single Grain (S), Unit Volume of Single Grain (V) and Bulk Density (BD)) and chemical composition (viz., Moisture, Protein, Fat, Crude fibre, Carbohydrate and Ash content) of raw and puffed Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) were analyzed and it was found that physical properties viz., length, width, thickness, AMD, GMD, SMD, EQD, Surface Area of Single Grain (S) and Unit Volume of Single Grain (V) of puffed Chickpea was greater than that of raw Chickpea and proximate composition viz., Moisture, Protein, Fat and Ash content of raw chickpea grains were more than that of puffed Chickpea Grains.