Development of steam-impinged microwave-vacuum assisted blanching of ready-to-cook vegan patties

Abstract

Ready-to-cook vegan patties are made primarily with two major ingredients: peas and potatoes containing the peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase enzymes, which affect their longer shelf life. The present study develops and evaluates the combination of steam-microwave along with rapid vacuum cooling for the blanching of vegan patties. Mathematical modelling and process optimization of the process revealed that a lower microwave power density of 2 W/g along with 2.5 s steam time for the total duration of 142.5 s gives the most optimum condition for patties samples of fixed 0.85 cm thickness and pea-to-potato mash ratio of 0.6. Page model (R2 = 0.98) described most of the moisture variation from the patties sample during the process. An increase in moisture diffusivity (n > 1) indicated the probable shift towards superdiffuison from subdiffusion. The result points towards the effectiveness of the low water and least effulent producing blanching process and its significant potential for industrial application. Industrial relevanceBlanching is one of the important processing steps in food industries, which is carried out conventionally through hot water. These conventional techniques generate lots of effluents that not only are difficult to manage and incur an extra cost to the industry but also cause pollution if released untreated. According to an estimate, around 11–23 m3/t of the waste water gets generated from the fruits and vegetable industry which are majorly responsible for the environmental pollution and an added cost to the industry for handling these wastes. The present study developed a blanching process that minimised the generation of the effluent to 50% approximately. Food industries can deploy this method for faster, more effective and efficient blanching without much use of water.