Thermal processing of prawn ‘kuruma’ in retortable pouches and aluminium cans

Abstract

Prawn 'kuruma' was prepared from Indian white shrimp (Fenneropenaeus indicus), packed in conventional 301 · 206 and 401 · 411 aluminium cans and in thin profile retort pouches having a three-layer configuration of 12.5 l polyester, 12.5 l aluminium foil and 85 l cast polypropylene of size 16 · 20 cm and 17 · 30 cm. The physico-chemical tests conducted on these containers showed their suitability for thermal processing. Prawn to kuruma ratio of 65:35 was maintained in all the containers and heat processed to equal lethality in an over pressure autoclave with the facility to record the time-temperature data, F 0 value and cook value. The process time was calculated by using formula method. The processing in 16 · 20 cm and 17 · 30 cm retortable pouch resulted in 35.67% and 56.56% reduction in process time compared with 301 · 206 and 401 · 411 cans, respectively, with equal pack weight. The amino acid content did not vary considerably in both containers. In the canned samples the reduction of sulfhydryl content was 50.54% more when compared with the pouched product. Products packed in pouches were found to be superior to canned products with regard to sensory and textural attributes such as colour, firmness, hardness, chewiness, and overall acceptability.

Retort pouch processing of Chettinad style goat meat curry — a heritage meat product

“…Heating lag factor (J h ) was 1.13. The observations were in accordance to the fi ndings of Mohan et al (2008) who reported that heating lag factor (J h ) of 1.44 and 1.0 for canned and pouch processed prawn kurma, respectively. Cooling lag factor (J c ) of 1.48 was observed for the product and the results are similar to that recorded by Shankar et al (2002) in sheer fi sh curry in retort pouches and Bindu et al (2004) in ready to eat mussel meat in retort pouches.…”

“…The migration residues were well below the limits described for a food contact material (FDA 1983). Water vapour transmission was lower indicating suitability of thermal processing of the pouches and the fi ndings are in accordance with results described by Vijayan et al (1998) and Mohan et al (2008). They reported that the product had more shelf life with less water transmission rate.…”

“…In its 4 layer confi guration, biaxially oriented nylon of 15 μm was included for improving the barrier properties, which was not reported previously (Shankar et al 2002, Mohan et al 2008). The other 3 layers were aluminium foil, cast poly propylene and polyester of 9, 70 and 12 μm thickness, respectively.…”

“…Polyester) and a dimension of 20 cm × 15 cm were used for this study. Physical properties were assessed for the suitability of retort pouches for thermal processing (Table 1), by using Universal Testing Machine (stable micro systems Ltd, England) as per the standard procedure reported by Mohan et al (2008).…”

“…Shelf stable traditional Kerala style fi sh curry (Gopal et al 2001), seer fi sh curry (Shankar et al 2002), ready to eat mussel meat (Bindu et al 2004), mutton meat curry (DRDO 2004), tuna in oil (Ali et al 2006), ready-to-eat black clam ), ready to eat squid masala (Sreenath et al 2007), readyto-eat pearlspot fi sh curry (Pandey et al 2007) and prawn kurma (Mohan et al 2008) were prepared by retort pouch processing. Patents have been awarded for retort pouch processing of broiled fi sh product (Sugisawa et al 1989), meat paste food (Shoichi 1993), meat with vegetables and rice (Masaki 2001), sliced meat (Hiroyuki et al 2002) and retort meat quality improver (Kenichi et al 2007).…”