Investigation on the correlation between changes in water and texture properties during the processing of surimi from golden pompano (Trachinotus ovatus)

Abstract

Water and texture properties are important indicators for evaluating surimi and surimi seafood quality. The present study assessed the impact of surimi processing on the water and texture properties and analyzed their correlations. The results showed that the moisture content exhibited significant positive correlations with T₂₂ and A₂₂ (P < 0.05). However, water-holding capacity (WHC) revealed significant negative correlation with T₂₁ and A₂₂ (P < 0.05). Moreover, correlations between water and texture properties were observed. Moisture content and A₂₂ displayed significant negative correlation with hardness (P < 0.05). WHC exhibited significant positive correlations with cohesiveness, springiness, and chewiness (P < 0.05), whereas T₂₁ exhibited significant negative correlation with those properties (P < 0.05). Springiness is an important indicator for texture properties of surimi gel. T₂₁ and WHC exhibited significant correlations with springiness (P < 0.05). We used two equations to assess the relationship between springiness and T₂₁ (y = 9.64 × x² - 33.79 × x + 29.62, R² = 0.995, P < 0.05) and between springiness and WHC (y = 0.57 + 9.05/{1+e^{[-29.29 × ( x - 83.90)]} }^0.01 , R² = 0.999, P < 0.05), respectively. Verification experiments proved that these two regression equations could be used to predict the change law among feature indicators during the processing of surimi seafood. The present study finds an easy-to-control method to monitor the quality of surimi production and processing for all the stages, and provides ideas for quality design of surimi products. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: The quality of surimi seafood is affected by the process used for surimi production. Early detection of the material quality can efficiently prevent resource wastage. The feature indicators and their correlations help in easy-to-control of all surimi processing stages. Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) is a fast, nondestructive method for monitoring food real-time, but the instrument is expensive; whereas water-holding capacity and texture profile analysis (TPA) are traditional methods but time-consuming and material-consuming. Surimi enterprises or researchers choose the right methods based on their needs.

Keywords: golden pompano; surimi processing; texture profile analysis (TPA); water distribution; water-holding capacity.