Effect of pre-drying on kinetics of moisture loss and oil uptake during deep fat frying of chickpea flour-based snack food

Abstract

Mass transfer kinetics of moisture outflow and oil uptake during deep fat frying of snack food prepared from a blend of chickpea flour and modified starch have been investigated. The effect of frying temperature and pre-fry drying has also been studied. The results indicated that an increase in the temperature of frying (150–200°C) caused an increase in mass transfer coefficient for moisture (0.045–0.096 s −1) as well as for oil (0.056–0.082 s −1). Pre-fry drying also had a significant effect on the deep fat frying. As the pre-fry drying time was increased (0–90 min) before frying at 175°C, it resulted in a decrease in kinetic coefficient for moisture transfer (0.056–0.039 s −1) as well as in kinetic coefficient for oil transfer (0.063–0.035 s −1). Based on the kinetics and sensory data, the optimum pre-fry drying and frying times were 40 min and 45 s, respectively, which resulted in 54% reduction in the oil content of the fried product, without compromising on the sensory quality characteristics.