The objective of present study was to investigate the effect of cooking and their combinations with re-heating methods on the formation of cholesterol oxidation products (COPs) in stored chicken thigh meat. Pan roasting, steaming, oven grilling, charcoal grilling, and microwaving were used for cooking. Re-heating of samples was done using the same cooking methods or microwaving after 3 and 6 d of refrigerated storage. Cooking and re-heating resulted in reduction of crude fat and cholesterol contents of chicken thigh meat depending on storage period before re-heating. Cooking and storage period had no influence on the total amount of COPs. The highest total amount of COPs was observed in meat samples cooked by steaming and reheated by microwaving after 6 d of storage, which showed similar value to raw chicken meat stored for 6 days. However, different re-heating methods formed different types of COPs depending on storage period before re-heating. The high amount (p<0.05) of 25-hydroxycholesterol or α-epoxide was detected in meat samples reheated by steaming or microwaving at 3 or 6 d of storage after steamed cooking, respectively. As a result, the combination of steaming and re-heating with microwaving could increase the total amount of COPs in chicken thigh meat and different cooking/re-heating methods could form different types of COPs, even though no significant difference in the total amount of COPs depending on storage period.
Keywords: chicken meat; cholesterol oxides; re-heating; storage period; total cholesterol.