Research Update from LaSalle Beauvais
with Imen Bedoui, December 2011
The objective of the research element of the Hotpot project is to develop six traditional dishes cooked in the microwave for the catering and food service industry. The benefit of this research is to develop products with high organoleptic and nutritional quality combined with the benefit of lower costs through reduced energy expenditure. Six dishes have been selected for research sautéed vegetables, traditional hotpot, pastry cream, beef bourguignon, fish in sauce and hamburgers.
The study will be carried out in two stages. The first stage consists of establishing the kinetics of cooking through a comparative study between microwave cooking (catering industry microwave) and conventional cooking methods by using a hot air oven for the hotpot and a hotplate for the sautéed vegetables and the pastry cream. This comparison will be judged on nutritional indicators (Vitamin C, polyphenol total etc.), organoleptic indicators (colours, textures, sensory evidence), toxicological factors ascertained by quantifying neoformed compound products which starts with the Maillard reaction as well as carboxymethyllysine (CML) and energetic factors through measuring energy consumption.
The second stage of the study centres on the optimisation of microwave cooking which consists of finding the optimum balance of microwave strength and cooking time to ensure a high quality and low cost final product. Measurement guides for the surface responses to both factors has been used to determine the optimal parameters. The kinetics established during the first phase of the exercise will enable us to fit in the factor levels within the measurements.
The optimum conditions for microwave cooking found for each dish is validated from physicochemical, microbiological and sensory view points by supplementary preparations. The optimums found were (750W, 20min) for the sautéed vegetables, (1500W, and 69min) for the pot-au-feu and (3000W, 7min) for the pastry cream. Microbiological evaluation on the first three dishes confirms their safety and hygienic quality.
Similarly, for the first two dishes the sensory validation achieved in France has confirmed that there are no significant global differences between microwave cooking and conventional cooking, research is ongoing regarding the sensory validation for the pastry cream.
