Comparative effect of High pressure and Conventional Heat Processing on the Development and Shelf life of Restructured Surimi balls during Chilled Storage

Abstract

There is an increasing demand towards innovative fish products to cater the demand of modern market and restructured surimi products are such emerging products. Restructured surimi balls were developed by restructuring the washed and concentrated pink perch surimi, formed into shapes under traditional heat setting at 90°C for 60 min and pressure setting at 200 MPa for 15 min. Surimi was added with MTGase (0.5%) for enhancing the crosslinking between proteins and casein as a substrate for cross linking, so as to improve the physico-chemical properties of the balls. A comparative analysis on the storage characteristics of pressure set and heat set surimi balls were done under chilled conditions. When compared with heat set balls the texture characteristics and gel strength values were less, whereas elastic nature of the product was retained in high pressure processing. High pressure can retain the raw texture of the balls with softer and glossier appearance while heat causes texture to be harder and dry. The quality indices values were found within the limit even after 16 days of storage under chilled conditions. Even though microbial quality of both samples were comparable, higher sensory score was given for pressure-set sample. Also, MTGase addition had synergistic effect with high pressure in enhancing the overall quality of products. Present study exhibited the potential of high pressure technology in developing restructured surimi balls through pressure induced gelation similar to the traditional heat induced gelation.