Technology of Minced Fish Canned Food from Thorny Skate, Enriched with Chondroitin Sulfate

Abstract

The article presents the results of theoretical and experimental research on the development of technology of functional minced fish canned food. Study of consumer preferences and the market of canned fish in the Murmansk region allowed to determine the range of novelties such as canned fish (”Skate and cod in white sauce” and ”Meatballs made from skate and cod in tomato sauce”), enriched with chondroitin sulfate (CS). The use of thorny skate’s (a fish that lives in the North Atlantic and the Barents Sea) wings meat for canning purposes enriches the composition of canned food. The content of CS in one can of canned food with net weight of 250 g ranged from 550 to 700 mg. This guarantees the intake of human body from 78 to 100% of the daily rate of this powerful chondroprotector. To remove urea from the skate’s meat, the method of infrared blanching is proposed, which ensures the efficiency in removal of urea at over 70% of its initial content in fish. Infrared blanching allows not only saving raw materials from unpleasant smell, but also partially removing water from it (water losses are from 8 to 13%). Partial dehydration of raw materials allows avoiding formation of water sedimentation in ready-made canned goods after sterilization. With the help of the fuzzy logic method, the MatLab program determines the optimal formulations of canned food, which guarantee their best consumer properties. The Ellab device has been used to experimentally select sterilization modes, which guarantee industrial sterility of canned food, hence the actual sterilization effect is higher than the standard one. During the two years of research, experimental studies of organoleptic properties, microbiological and biochemical changes in canned food were carried out, which made it possible to establish the shelf life: one year at a storage temperature not exceeding 20ºC.