Abstract
Yellow cured codfish has a typical yellow colour, distinctive taste, and low salt content due to its special curing process of the raw salted codfish involving several soaks in water of the raw salted codfish, alternated with drying steps. The purpose of this study was to assess the main functional groups of bacteria involved in this process and relate them with physicochemical properties of the product. A total of 28 codfish from Iceland were supplied by two local companies. Seven stages of the curing process were analyzed. From each of these seven stages, four fish samples were collected to carry out the microbial and physicochemical analyses (moisture, salt content, pH, total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N), and trimethylamine nitrogen (TMA-N)). Bacteria counts were performed using the MPN method and adequate culture media for aerobic, proteolytic, sulphite-reducing, biogenic amine, and trimethylamine-producing and ammonifying bacteria. Strains isolated from the highest dilutions with microbial growth were used to characterize the predominant bacteria. The results showed that total aerobic counts increased from 3.9 log MPN/g in raw salted codfish to 5.9 log MPN/g in the final. Proteolytic, ammonifying, and trimethylamine bacteria producers also increased to 8, 7.5, and 6.5 log MPN/g, respectively. The salt content decreases (from 17% until 8%) and moisture increases (53% until 67%) during the salted-raw-codfish soaking, favoring sulphite-reducing and biogenic amine-producing species, confirming that desalting enhances potential spoilers. The subsequent drying step benefits proteolytic, ammonifying, and trimethylamine-producing bacteria, with a corresponding non-protein-nitrogen content (TVB-N and TMA-N) increase. The dominant bacteria during yellow curing belong to the genera Staphylococcus, Psychrobacter, Pseudomonas, and Alcaligenes with a clear positive correlation between the content of Staphylococcus and Psychrobacter and TVB-N and TMA-N concentration. Staphylococcus spp. are the dominant bacteria in the steps where the product has a higher salt concentration; thus, it could be particularly useful as an indicator to control the industrially yellow curing process and could have an important role in the development of the final characteristics of this product.
Highlights
The salt cod preservation was introduced by the Basque people, based on the methodology applied to whale meat [1]
Many of the Micrococcus strains exhibited an increasing proteolytic activity up to a maximum in 2% NaCl and declining to zero in 12% NaCl, and about 50% of the cultures were capable to reduce trimethylamine oxide (TMAO) to trimethylamine (TMA)
The results showed that total aerobic counts increased from 3.9 log most probable number (MPN)/g in raw salted codfish to 5.9 log MPN/g in the final product; proteolytic, ammonifying, and trimethylamine bacteria producers increased to 8 and 7.5 and 6.5 log microorganisms/g, respectively (Figure 2)
Summary
The salt cod preservation was introduced by the Basque people, based on the methodology applied to whale meat [1]. Portuguese yellow cured cod fish stands upon the Newfoundland methodology of light curing, and this knowledge was brought to Europe by the Portuguese fishermen [2] This kind of methodology confers an amber colour, a lower salt. The raw salted fish is washed and submitted to soaking, which can be for several hours, and successive drying and press-pilling periods [3]. As this cure is performed with a lower amount of salt, the fish becomes more predisposed to microbial development, mainly slime-forming bacteria. The drying periods must be carried out for 12 h [3, 4]
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