Coating ingredients

Abstract

Batter-or breadcrumb-coated products are highly attractive foods. Coatings enhance the flavor, texture, and appearance, adding value to the substrate food by giving the fried product a pleasant golden color and a crispy exterior texture that is normally very appetizing. Because "battering and frying" has been a traditional method for preparing foods, empiricism has dominated its application for decades. Although considerable geographical variations occasionally exist because of the raw materials available, versions of batter-coated or breaded foods are found in the traditional or regional cuisines of practically every part of the world. Changes in lifestyle, particularly in the western world, have consolidated the availability and sales of convenience foods and frozen products, providing considerable support for the expansion and globalization of coated foods. Nowadays, the market for this type of product is growing steadily, and there are even major food service sector companies with a worldwide presence that only serve products of this kind. Automation of manufacturing, innovations in the cooking methods, the demand for more sophisticated foods, diversification, and a concern to develop healthier products that contain less fat are the factors that dominate the latest research trends in this area. In addition, if the products are to go through the final cooking stage in the home there has to be a certain degree of versatility, as the consumer can vary the method or times and this should not lead to disappointment. The research fields have been increasing permanently in recent years. They cover developments in both coating formulations and coating application technology, which constitute the important challenges facing the technicians and researchers working in this area. In the traditional process, the manufacturer batters the food pieces (chicken pieces, chicken nuggets, and strips, beef fritters and fingers, pork chunks, veal products, etc.), prefries them for a few seconds in order to give the batter a certain solidity of consistence, and then freezes them. The consumer buys them in this form and, in turn, fries them for a few minutes in order to cook them, normally until a golden external color has been reached. From the point of view of the industrial process, there is a choice between cooking fully before the application of the coating (95°C, 99% RH) or after it (180°C, 5% RH); in both cases the coating stage is followed by a prefrying step. The choice depends on the industrial machinery, the type of meat or other product to be coated, and its size, shape, etc., but it must also be remembered that yields can differ considerably, as can the final product quality. While the batter is raw it must create a homogeneous layer that covers the food, which is normally also raw, and must adhere to it before and after coagulation - which takes place during the prefrying step - and during final frying; after the batter coagulates it must withstand freezing temperatures and normal handling (packaging and transportation) without cracking or breaking and without losing any portion of the external layer; during the final frying performed in the consumer's home it must create an outer crust with good acceptability in terms of texture (particularly crispness), flavor, and color. Coatings might also need to prevent oxidation, limit moisture and oil transfer, give freeze/thaw stability, and extend shelf life. Of course, they must also be cost-effective (Kuntz, 1997a). To achieve these objectives, research into the behavior of flours and starches has traveled a long way and a considerable array of ingredients with a broad range of functionalities has begun to be used. Methods for controlling the physical properties of both the raw and the fried products have also seen a tremendous boost in recent decades. Although the fascinating world of battered or breaded foods involves many technological aspects, this chapter will pay particular attention to the use of ingredients and their properties in relation to good coated product performance and, more specifically, to the uses of polysaccharide hydrocolloids or gums, which have such a wide-ranging functionality that they feature in practically every approach to improving the quality of coated products. Most of the available information for studying the ingredients used in these types of coatings does not differ greatly between meat products and other types of foods although, in fact, most of the developments have been made for protein substrates. Nevertheless, developments involving specific aspects of meat products will be cited in detail in this chapter. © 2009 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.