Effect of Cooking Treatment on Microbial, Sensory and Colour Characteristics of Fish Pâté: Comparison of Ohmic and Traditional Cooking Techniques

Abstract

The objective of this research was to investigate the quality characteristics of fish pâté after cooking. The fish pâté was cooked by ohmic and traditional (water bath) cooking techniques to same target temperature (78 °C). The pasteurization value of ohmic cooked fish pâté (OC) was calculated as 473.82 min and this value was less than the pasteurization value of traditionally cooked fish pâté (TC) calculated as 2696.23 min. However, total bacteria count (TBC) and total yeast and mold count (TYM) of OC and TC were not (p>0.05) statistically different. Although the L* and a* colour values of OC and TC were not significantly different (p>0.05), these colour values were significantly different (p>0.05) from the values of uncooked fish pâté (UC). After cooking process, the sensory score of OC was higher than the sensory score of TC according to appearance, flavour and odour score. On the other hand, the deterioration of OC was occurred faster than the deterioration of TC during cold storage (4°C) of fish pâtés. OC was evaluated “unacceptable” at the 20th days of storage when TC was evaluated “acceptable” at the same day of storage. In the view of such information, the unique heating mechanism of ohmic cooking indicate the necessity of a new approach to optimize ohmic cooking process.