Insight into the evolution of flavor compounds during cooking of common beans utilizing a headspace untargeted fingerprinting approach.

Beans age during storage leading to prolonged cooking times. Chemical reactions that occur during cooking lead to volatile production and flavor generation. Whereas few studies profiled the volatile fingerprint of either non-cooked beans or beans cooked for a specific time, this study explored the evolution of volatiles through headspace fingerprinting of beans cooked at 95 °C to different extents. The influence of aging of beans on this evolution was investigated. Cooking time clearly influenced the evolution of volatiles for both fresh (non-aged) and aged beans. Aged beans exhibited more discriminant compounds than fresh beans regardless of texture considerations due to differences in pre-history of the beans. Strecker aldehydes, sulphur compounds and furan compounds were identified as marker compounds and were linked to mainly lipid oxidation and Maillard reactions. In conclusion, both aging prior to cooking and the cooking process itself largely influence the evolution of volatile compounds during cooking.