Sensory evaluation and nutritive value of tempe snacks in West Africa

Abstract

Two locally-grown legumes namely cowpea and groundbean were processed into tempe, an Indonesian fermented food. Freshly harvested beans for tempe were sliced and either frozen at -20°C and were later blanched or blanched immediately and fried into tempe snacks which were evaluated for their sensory characteristics by three hundred (300) West African panellists. Cowpea and groundbean tempe snacks were comparable in all sensory quality attributes. Despite the low but acceptable scores recorded for the taste, the assessors accepted all the tempe snacks with preference to cowpea tempe snacks. Bean tempe snacks are good sources of protein and energy and were comparable to fried woagachi, a West African unripened soft cheese.