Abstract: Described herein are method and apparatus for producing instantly cookable pasta including various kinds of pasta and Chinese and Japanese noodles, and an encased instantly cookable pasta produced by such method and apparatus. According to the invention, part of raw dough of a starting mixture, which contains wheat flour as a major component, is subjected to preliminary steam-cooking, and then mixed with the remaining uncooked part of the starting mixture. The resulting mixture is then processed through shaping, steam-cooking and drying stages to obtain instantly cookable pasta, enshrouding the instantly cookable pasta product in a water-permeable casing before shipment. Due to suppression of thermal degeneration of gluten, the instantly cookable pasta possesses favorable resiliency and is free of the smell inherent to raw wheat flour and cohesion of individual pasta cords.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a process for producing molded food which particles of processed food such as corn flakes, wheat flakes are binded with pregelatinized cereal powder containing aqueous ethyl alcohol or powdery polymer material to mold them in a shape such as thin and long plate and the like. In the case that molded food is made by binding said particles of processed food, conventionally corn syrup is used as a binder. In this case, the taste of corn syrup obstructs original taste of the processed food and besides obtained molded food is hard to be unpleasant when chewing since the processed food is binded strongly. In this invention, the particles of processed food are made wet previously, then they are sprinkled with pregelatinized cereal powder, dried with heating to bind the particles of processed food by making the pregelatinized cereal powder become a binder to obtain molded food.