Patent ID: 7374789

Claim:
A method of producing cooked alimentary pasta comprising the steps of: preparing an alimentary dough comprising semolina, and water; acidifying the alimentary dough during preparation in a first acidifying step by adding at least one edible acid thereto; forming said alimentary dough to obtain fresh acidic pasta having a pH of 3.8 to 4.3 and a moisture content of 30 to 32% and in which said edible acid is distributed to the fresh alimentary core; drying said fresh acidic pasta to a moisture content of 11.0 to 12.5% prior to cooking said pasta, allowing gluten contained in the fresh acidic pasta to reticulate; substantially completely cooking said dried pasta to obtain cooked pasta; treating said cooked pasta in a second acidifying step with an aqueous solution of an alimentary acid to obtain cooked acidic pasta having a pH not more than 4.1; and packaging said cooked acidic pasta for distribution in sealed packages and subjecting the packaged pasta to thermal sanitization by heating the sealed packages.