Interaction among Nutritive, Textural, and Sensory Properties of Rabbit Sausages

Abstract

The nutritive, textural, and sensory properties of commercial fresh rabbit sausages and their interactions were evaluated. The mean contents of moisture, protein, fat, ash, and carbohydrate were 43.89 ± 1.66%, 9.82 ± 2.71%, 22.37 ± 1.7%, 2.99 ± 0.10%, and 20.94 ± 3.05%, respectively. Conversely, the mean values of hardness, adhesiveness, springiness, cohesiveness, gumminess, and chewiness were 103.36 ± 3.48 N, −4.54 ± 1.58 N s, 3.38 ± 0.67 mm, 0.15 ± 0.03, 16.07 ± 3.20 N, and 55.73 ± 20.44 N mm, respectively. The moisture and protein contents showed significant negative correlation while three remaining nutritive properties showed significant positive correlation with textural properties ( P < 0.05 for all parameters). The score for nonparametric ranking of sensory properties like appearance/colour, flavour, juiciness, and tenderness ranged from 28.28 to 38.78, 29.41 to 35.91, 30.06 to 37.38, 26.75 to 40.69, and 29.03 to 36.75, respectively. In conclusion, rabbit sausages formulated with low quantities of moisture and protein result in hard sausages with low acceptability by sensory panellist. To improve the sausages, it is recommended that processors develop an optimal formulation.