Performance Evaluation and Cost Estimation of Papad Making Process with Papad Press Machine & Prepared Papad Compared with the Commercial Market Sample

Abstract

India is the center of diverse food cultures comprising more than 1000 major and minor ethnic fermented and no fermented foods. One of the key players in ethnic foods which have been locally and globally marketed is papad. Papad, a low moisture traditional Indian savory food item is consumed either after frying or roasting. It is being manufactured on cottage or home scale and has been in a great demand in India and abroad. Traditionally, circular in shape, made from dough of powdered pulses (black gram, green gram), spices, common salt, edible oil, papad khar, containing sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate and calcium propionate. Conventionally papads making method involves preparation of dough using urid, spices, common salt, papad khar, edible oil etc. with required quality of water, beating of dough tip soft, making dough rounds (ball) rolling into circular disc, using rolling pins (roller manually). The rolled papad (circular dough disc) are dried under shade to a moisture content of 13 to 14 per cent (w.b.). Traditional method of rolling with pins (roller) is a very tedious and time consuming; hence yield of papad was also very low. Keeping the aforesaid view, the hand operated papad press available in the department of P.H.T. at C.A.E., Pusa, Bihar was planned to evaluate the Papad making prcess . This machine is faster, simple in operation and very efficient; its capacity is 150 papads per hour. Since it is very easy to operate, so ladies can also operate without any difficulty. Its production is four times greater than old system and it requires no power. Thus, the machine (hand papad press) can be used efficiently for the production of papads by village women and can generate income as well as employment to many unemployed youth at village level. K e y w o r d s