Studying Some Physicochemical Characteristics of Crust Coated with White Egg and Chitosan Using a Deep-Fried Model System

Abstract

In this paper, the effects of frying time, white egg (0%, 5% and 10% w/w) and chitosan (0%, 0.5% and 1.5% w/w) addi- tion to the batter formulation on the quality of simulated crispy deep-fried Kurdish cheese nugget crusts was studied by using a deep-fried crust model. Moisture content, oil content, color and hardness of the samples were determined. Crust models were fried at 190˚C for 60, 120 and 180 s. Batter formulations and frying time significantly (p < 0.01) affected moisture, oil content, color and hardness of Crust models. Batter formulation contain 10% white egg was found to be an effective ingredient in decreasing oil content of Crust models. The mean moisture and fat content of Crust models formed with batter contained 10% white egg, fried at 190˚C, for 180 s were 6.207 ± 0.447 and 5.649 ± 0.394. Batters containing 5% white egg and 1.5% chitosan showed the lowest moisture content and the highest oil content among all the formulations. Crust models containing combination of white egg and chitosan were the darkest. Hardness of sam- ples containing chitosan were the highest, specially for ch1.5 The mean hardness in 60, 120 and 180 s of frying in this formulation were 21.518 ± 0.481, 36.871 ± 1.758 and 49.563 ± 1.847 respectively.