EFFECT OF FROZEN STORAGE ON THE FUNCTIONAL PROPERTY OF RIBBON FISH (TRICHIURUS SAVALA)CUVIER

Abstract

The ribbon fish (Trichiurus savala) is an important marine fish caught along the coast of Orissa, India amounting to 9.2% of total marine fish catch. The possibility of using frozen ribbon fish to make surimi was investigated. At 1 month interval, fish were thawed under controlled conditions and gels were then made from minces of the flesh. Both puncture and torsion tests showed that the quality of gels declined by 30% after 30 days of storage and thereafter nonsignificant reduction up to 100 days storage of frozen ribbon fish at−20C. This decline was correlated by a decrease in pH and an increase in formaldehyde concentration in the frozen flesh. The data suggest that a land-based surimi plant could not be operated outside the harvesting season to any appreciable extent using frozen ribbon fish stored at−20C. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Ribbon fish (Trichiurus savala) is a commercially important fish and is caught all over the state of Orissa, India. Because this fish gets spoiled fast, idea was generated in using frozen fish to produce surimi, which would increase production flexibility and thus allow a land-based surimi plant outside the harvesting season. The result of the present experiment shows that thestorage of headed and gutted ribbon fish at −20C resulted in a significant loss of gel-forming properties of the flesh with time and this loss would be too fast to allow use of storage ribbon fish for making surimi over an extended period in a commercial operation. Possibly, storage at lower temperature than used in the present study is necessary to maintain gel-forming ability and the advantage so obtained would have to be balanced against the increased capital and operational costs of storage at these lower temperatures.