Evaluation of Different Conventional Breading Materials on Functional Quality Attributes of Battered and Breaded Fish Cutlets

ABSTRACT

Breading and battering of fish results in a physically superior product with a higher economic value from low-value fish. The present work was undertaken to evaluate three conventional breading materials for fish cutlets. Standard sized fish cutlets were molded with and dipped in a batter mix, followed by breading with bread crumbs (CB), pressed rice (PR), or noodle vermicelli (NS). The products were evaluated for coating parameters such as pickup, adhesion degree, cooking loss, and frying yield. The coating pickup ranged from 10.95% to 36.00%, and a maximum pickup was found with pressed rice (PR). Similarly, the adhesion degree in PR was 26.47%, which was highest among the three. Cooking loss was highest with control (conventional breadcrumb) at 15.92%. After analyzing the frying yield, it was found that PR yielded the maximum at 16.75% and less oil absorption. PR also had significantly (p < .05) higher hue angle value than both the NS and CB. Maximum browning and tough texture was observed in the NS sample. Frying tolerance was better with PR breading, which maintained better color during deep frying operations. This study can help industries to utilze low-cost breading material in preparing enrobed snack products.

KEYWORDS:

• Fish mince
• enrobed product
• coating pickup
• oil absorption
• toughness

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India) for their relentless support. The authors also express sincere gratitude to the Director, ICAR-Central Institute Fisheries Education for his encouragement during the execution of this work.66

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ICAR, New Delhi, India [NA].