High pressure/thermal combinations on texture and water holding capacity of chicken batters

Abstract

Abstract The effects of pressure/thermal combination treatments, i.e. heating before pressure treatment (H-P), pressure treatment before heating (P-H), and heating under pressure (P + H), on chicken batters were investigated using heating (H) as control. The appearance, texture, water holding capacity (WHC), water mobility and distribution, and microstructure were determined. P + H and P-H treatments promoted the batter gelation process, forming a gel with fine strands which resulted in improved appearance, texture and water holding capacity, while H-P treatment, with a similar coarse gel network to H treatment, showed little improvement in texture and appearance, but had increased released water and centrifugation loss. By treating with 200 MPa at 75 °C for 30 min in a single-step process, the chicken sausage had the smoothest appearance, lowest released water and an improved texture. The water mobility and distribution were studied by low-field NMR relaxometry, which showed that H-P and P + H treatment increased the proportion of immobilized water as indicated by T21 relaxation times and population (P21). Microstructure further explained the quality improvement of P-H and P + H treatment which could be ascribed to the pressure effects before/during protein denaturation promoting formation of a fine gel network, while H-P treatment limited the resulting effects of pressure on the cooked sample. Hence, P-H and P + H treatment can be used to improve the texture and WHC of gel-type meat products. Industrial relevance Temperature and pressure are two important thermodynamic parameters which can be combined in several ways in meat product processing. The sequence of pressure and thermal treatment has a significant effect on the quality of meat products. This information will help meat industry to adopt suitable pressure/thermal treatment to produce meat products.