CH643989A5 - METHOD FOR PRODUCING DEHYDRATED ESSWARE, DEHYDRATED ESSWARE PRODUCED BY THIS PROCESS, AND USE THEREOF FOR PRODUCING REHYDRATED, EDIBLE PRODUCTS. - Google Patents

Description

The invention relates to a process for the production of dehydrated edible goods, in which an edible gel is dried, to dehydrated edible goods produced by this process and to a use thereof.

Dried foods that can be recovered after adding water are well known. Examples are soups, desserts and snack products. Some of these products, often referred to as "instant", are suitable for consumption within a short period of time after restoration, e.g. 1 to 2 minutes later, while others need to be soaked for a long time to allow the food ingredients to absorb water or rehydrate. The specification of the rehydration conditions depends, of course, on the nature of the constituents of the food. If the food contains pieces or portions of dried vegetables or meat, gentle boiling in boiling water may be required for up to 20 minutes and therefore such foods are not acceptable as instant products.

Immediately finished products with dried food pieces such as dried vegetables and dried meat are commercially available. They can be obtained by freeze-drying pieces of the appropriate foods. Pieces obtained by such a process, however, do not always have all the desired properties: the rehydrated product can e.g. be spongy and defective in aroma, color or structure, so that it corresponds to the original food

40 tel no longer resembles. For example, it has been found that rehydrated, freeze-dried tomato pieces can be undesirably light and spongy and without flavor. In addition, such pieces or parts are also expensive.

Another source of dried, edible products is described in the prior art (BE-PS 836 194). They are produced by making a dispersion of chopped food in a aerated calcium alginate or calcium pectate gel, cutting the gel into pieces and drying the pieces. The use of aeration or blowing agent is expensive and in some cases can also result in an undesirably spongy structure in the rehydrated pieces. This solution therefore also has disadvantages.

Surprisingly, it has now been found that not 55 gas-treated alginate gels with comminuted foods, e.g. Purees, after slicing and air drying, can be made to provide dried food items that are acceptable for use in instant products.

60 It is well known that alginate solutions can form films when dried. Therefore, it would not be completely surprising and it was actually found that pieces of alginate gel also tend to form films after air drying. In some cases, depending on the geometry of the gel pieces, a dried outer skin with a hollow interior is obtained before drying. Such an effect can be achieved if gel cubes are dried. It should also be noted that the so obtained

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dried materials have very moderate rehydration properties.

In contrast, by incorporating a chopped food into the gel matrix according to the inventive method as explained below, excellent structure-simulating vegetables or meat pieces can be obtained after rehydrating the air-dried gel pieces. Without wishing to be bound by theory, the presence of the chopped food particles appears to prevent the alginate network structure from collapsing with the accompanying film formation, and in the dried products provides particles of chopped food distributed over the dried alginate matrix. The food particles are thus free for hydration after the addition of water, but are prevented from being separated by the alginate matrix. Individual rehydrated particles result.

The inventive method for producing dehydrated edible goods, in which an edible gel is dried, is characterized by the combination of the process steps specified in claim 1. Advantageous further developments of the method result from patent claims 2 to 9.

According to the invention, a dehydrated, edible product is obtained, obtained by drying a mass with a finely divided, i.e. shredded or pureed foodstuffs, distributed in an edible (and preferably heat-resistant) oil that has not been treated with gas (air or carbonic acid) and has a gel strength corresponding to a value of at least 200 g, determined according to the subsequently defined method.

Since the gel has not been subjected to air or carbon dioxide treatment, it either has no overflow before drying or at most only a small amount due to inadvertent blistering which is insufficient to cause the material to become a foam, e.g. not more than 10%, preferably 5% or less, e.g. less than 1%, e.g. 0.5%.

If desired, the product can be immersed in water, e.g. hot water, sufficiently rehydrated in 60 to 120 s. Of course, the gels are manufactured as such without the addition of blowing agents or foaming agents: all constituents which are added for other reasons and which can promote gas formation are preferably limited to amounts at which any foam-promoting influences are negligible.

To produce a dried product that is sufficiently capable of rehydrating, drying is preferably carried out by air drying or oven drying.

The gel strength can be measured with a commercially available In-stron test device that compresses a gel of a defined size between two plates at a defined speed: the stress increases to a peak value at the yield point, and the yield stress measures the gel strength. The gels used according to the invention show at least 200 g gel strength for a cylindrical gel sample of 12 mm in diameter and 12 mm in height, compressed at 5 cm / min. Desirably, the strengths are even higher, corresponding to 350 or more, and can easily reach 600 or 700 or above.

An extremely desirable method of making gels that provide satisfactory dehydrated products according to the invention is a fast curing method (e.g. with gel times less than 30 minutes, e.g. 6 minutes), e.g. in British patent application 36085/78, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated: In the method described, solid calcium sulfate particles, e.g. as an aqueous slurry, quickly mixed with a chopped food in a gellable aqueous alginate or low methoxypectate sol and then under shear-free conditions, allowing the solid calcium sulfate to dissolve and the mixture to gel.

However, other methods of making the gels to be dewatered are also applicable to the practice of the invention, e.g. those described in British Pat. No. 1,369,198-9, the disclosure of which is also hereby incorporated: It relates to the rapid preparation of a mixture with an alginate or a low methoxypectate sol, a source of calcium ions (for example dicalcium phosphate), which is described in The absence of an agent capable of releasing calcium ions (e.g. acid), does not provide enough calcium ions to gel the soy, pulp or puree and an agent capable of releasing calcium ions, and allowing the mixture so produced to gel under practically shear-free conditions.

Using this invention, dried vegetable and meat pieces were made which have excellent color, aroma and structure after being restored in water for 1 to 2 minutes.

After formation, the gel can be shaped as desired, e.g. Cubes, strips, cut and on a commercially available air drying system, e.g. an oven or a pull-through dryer. The preferred drying temperature range is 60-80 ° C. The use of lower drying temperatures leads to longer drying times, while the use of higher temperatures can lead to unacceptable loss of aroma and to burning or charring. On the other hand, drying can be carried out or facilitated with the aid of a vacuum and / or drying agent, such as P205 or calcium chloride. For most applications it is desirable to bring the particles to a final moisture content of 4 to 12%, preferably 4 to 9%, e.g. 7% to dry. The choice of suitable drying conditions depends on the type of food to be dried, gelled, shredded and the intended use. Such conditions are easily determined by a simple experiment. A two-stage drying with intermediate storage to balance the water content of the partially dried material may be desirable.

If the products are used as components in instantly prepared foods, the best results are achieved by rehydrating in boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes.

If necessary, the addition of a structure-modifying agent during gel production can improve rehydration and suitably modify the structure of the rehydrated particles. Such structure-modifying agents are usually protein-like or carbohydrate-like in nature, e.g. Caseinates, albumin, gelatin, starch derivatives, cellulose derivatives, carrageenans, xanthan resin, etc. An economical structure-modifying agent is preferred for economic reasons. Pre-cooked or modified starches in an amount of about 0.5 to 3 percent by weight of the gelled, chopped food have shown acceptable results.

The dehydrated products according to the invention can be in the form of particles, disks or small blocks or other suitably shaped, regular or irregular pieces.

Although the products of the invention can be used in ready-made products in an acceptable manner, they retain their structural unity and qualities for the sensory organs under prolonged and extreme rehydration conditions, e.g. at 20 minutes s

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Boiling in water, and can therefore generally be used as a boiling agent. The invention is further illustrated by the following examples in dry food products, e.g. Dry super-, with the table below showing the

mixtures, can be used. the composition of the mixtures used.

table

Alginate phase

example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Sodium alginate (Manugel DMB)

-

1.00

1.40

Sodium alginate (Manugel DMM)

1.00

-

Na2HP04 • 12 HzO

0.20

0.30

CaHPO *

0.30

-

precooked potato starch

-

1.80

-

Monosodium glutamate

-

1.00

-

antioxidant

0.03

deionized water

65.90

tap water

38.70

35.97

40.00

40.00

67.60

Table table (continued)

Example 1 Example 2 Example 3

40.00

40.00

30.00

n

0.45 0.40

'- - 2.00

0.30 0.60 1.40

17.70 19.55

Crushed Food Phase Crushed Boiled Chicken Crushed Tomato (28-30% Solids)

crushed red pepper

CaS04 • 2 H20 (gypsum particles, which are caused by egg

0.42 mm sieve No. 40 go)

Starch (Colflo 67)

Trisodium citrate

Citric acid precooked potato starch

tap water

example 1

A gel containing 40% by weight of chopped tomato (28-30% solids) was prepared by mixing together an alginate phase and a chopped food phase as shown in the table and allowing it to set under shear-free conditions. The gel was cut into parallelepipeds with edges between 0.4 and 2.0 cm, which were dried on a commercially available pull-through dryer at 75 ° C. for 4 hours. The dried product had an average moisture content of 8.7% and rehydrated in the boiling water after about 1 minute to tomato slices of excellent taste and pleasant structure.

Example 2

A 40 weight percent shredded cooked chicken gel was prepared as in Example 1 using the alginate and shred food phase compositions as listed in the table. The gel was made into 0.8 cm cubes

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Edge length cut, which were dried for 3 hours at 70 ° C in a pull-through dryer. The dried product had an average moisture content of 8.1% and, after rehydration in boiling water, assumed a fibrous structure similar to that of boiled chicken after 2 minutes.

Example 3

A 30 weight percent crushed red pepper gel was prepared as in Example 1 using the composition shown in the table. The gel was cut into parallelepipeds (1.5 cm x 0.6 cm x 0.4 cm), which were dried on a fluid bed dryer of the 55 size of a tabletop device (model FBDL72) at 70 ° C for 2.5 hours. The resulting dried product with an average moisture content of 6.1% still had a strongly red color after 9 months of storage and rehydrated in boiling water after 6 minutes to simulated pepper pieces with an excellent color, structure and excellent aroma.

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s

Claims (10)

643,989 PATENT CLAIMS 1. A process for the production of dehydrated edible goods, in which an edible gel is dried, characterized in that the edible gel with a finely divided food dispersed therein without air or carbonic acid gas treatment and with a gel strength corresponding to a yield stress of at least 200 g , when a cylinder is compressed from the gel of 12 mm in diameter and 12 mm in height between plates which are moved towards one another at a speed of 5 cm / min, whereupon the rehydratable, dehydrated edible product is obtained in a drying step. 2. A process for the production of dehydrated edible goods according to claim 1, characterized in that the gel to be dried is obtained by rapidly mixing solid calcium sulfate particles into a gelable aqueous alginate or low methoxypectate sol and then under shear-free conditions which dissolve the solid calcium sulfate and allow the mixture to gel , has been manufactured. 3. A process for the production of dehydrated edible goods according to claim 1, characterized in that that the gel to be dried by rapidly making a mixture with an alginate or low methoxypectate sol, a source of calcium ions which, in the absence of an agent capable of releasing calcium ions, does not provide enough calcium ions to gel the soy, pulp or puree and an agent which Calcium ions is able to release, and the resulting mixture has been gelled under practically shear-free conditions. 4. A method for producing dehydrated edible goods according to claim 1, characterized in that an alginate or low methoxy oxypectate gel is used as the gel to be dried. 2nd 5. A method for producing dehydrated edible product according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that a gel with a gel strength is used as the gel to be dried, which has a yield stress of 5 corresponds to at least 350 g under the conditions defined above. 6. Process for the production of dehydrated edible product according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that a gel io is used as the gel to be dried, which gel can be considerably rehydrated in 60 to 120 s when immersed in hot water. 7. Process for the production of dehydrated edible product according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the gel is between 60 and 80 ° C i5 is air dried. 8. A process for the production of dehydrated edible goods according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the goods to be dried up to a moisture content in the range of 4-12% by weight. 20 percent is dried. 9. A method for producing dehydrated edible product according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that a gel is used as the gel to be dried, which further comprises a structure-modifying agent from the group of caseinates, albumin, gelatin, starch derivatives, cellulose derivatives, carrageenans and xanthans . 10. Dehydrated edible product produced by the process according to claim 1. 30 11. Use of the dehydrated edible product produced by a method according to claim 1 according to claim 10, for the production of a rehydrated, edible product. 25th