Effect of Soaking and Cooking Methods on Extraction of Solids and Acceptability of Tiger Nut (Cyperus Esculentus L) Milk

Abstract

Vegetable milk is a nutritious alternative for consumers who for dietary and other constraints cannot consume dairy milk. The production of vegetable milk solids of acceptable taste and quantity is however an important consideration. The study determined the effect of soaking in combination with boiling, steaming and roasting on the yield of milk, solids and its sensory quality. Boiling of tubers before soaking yielded the highest quantity of milk for all tubers with a range of 4395.5 g kg-1 to 6530.4 g kg-1. Boiling before soaking however gave the lowest milk solids for the tubers with the lowest and highest recorded as 101.0 g kg-1 and 139.0 g kg-1 respectively. Expected milk solids for all pre-treatments ranged from 541.4 g kg-1 to 619.4 g kg-1 for black tubers and 571.4 g kg-1 to 710.2 g kg-1 for the brown tubers. Roasting before soaking of brown tubers enhanced the flavor of milk however there were no differences in overall acceptability of milk extracted from different pre-treated tubers. This sequence of pretreatments will enhance the extraction of good quality tiger nut milk and solids to broaden its utilization as ingredient in the food industry.