DK160176B - RISKABLE DRIED SPICES PLANT PRODUCT AND PROCEDURES FOR PRODUCING THEREOF - Google Patents

Description

DK 160176 B

The invention relates to a rice-resistant dried herb plant product comprising dried finely divided herbs and / or aromatic vegetables and a process for their preparation.

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One of the factors that determines the quality of a food or dish as well as a chef's class has undoubtedly been the seasoning, where besides salt, sugar and vinegar also herbs and vegetables with a distinctly aromatic aroma (spice plants) have always played a prominent role, a further feature of many herbs has been "decoration".

The fact that the natural durability properties of 15 of most herbs are rather poor, and that freshly harvested materials for climatic reasons are usually only available regionally and / or seasonally, gave rise to attempts to overcome this deficiency early in history.

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The various experiments made in this regard can be roughly classified as follows: 1. The supply of freshly harvested herbs was enhanced by the fact that plants were grown under glass independent of climatic conditions and / or that transport was faster.

2. "Wet preservation" by "salting", "laying in layers", "candying" or "freezing".

3. Preservation by conversion to "dry products", ie. "dried herbs" and "essences". 1

Although the first two methods have partially yielded remarkably good results, they do not need to be discussed further in this context, as they by these methods

DK 160176 B

reached herbal plant products generally contain greater or lesser amounts of water and thus are not a priori suitable for dehydrated food products such as dehydrated soups and sauces which form an essential part of industrially prepared foods.

With regard to the third method, it should be noted that, notwithstanding the tremendous evolution of technology in general and of food technology in particular over the last decades, 10 the situation is virtually unchanged from what it was hundreds of years ago and what can be is described as follows:

Apart from certain spices of plant origin, such as 15 cloves, nutmeg, saffron or pepper, which are used almost exclusively in dried form at least in Central Europe, there are very few herbs, such as spices. bay leaves, which are even improved by drying, some herbs, such as scars, for which traditional drying does not result in loss, or to a lesser extent, of quality, at least in terms of aroma, and a great deal of herbs, such as chives, dill, basil, leaf sticks and especially parsley, which when dried by the generally known methods, yield a product which, in terms of aroma and color, must be described as strictly speaking no more than aromatic "hay", and which in fact owes only its use in dehydrated foods and in home cooking that good European cooking is unthinkable without these herbs. In this regard, even the expensive and complicated freeze-drying is no major improvement.

Another point is that the dried herbaceous products obtained by the generally known methods invariably exhibit unsatisfactory mechanical properties, ie.

35 under the influence of shear forces that are unavoidable during the manufacture, packaging and handling of dehydrated foods, crumble at least 3

DK 160176B

partly to an unappealing powder.

Another unsatisfactory endeavor consisted in the use of essences which, apart from their natural lack of appeal to the eye, usually show a spectrum of aromas which, in experience, are more or less changed from the original and in most cases are also more one-sided .

DE-B-1 053 911 discloses a method for stabilizing spices by mixing fresh plant parts with sodium acetate and acetic acid, followed by careful drying of the mixture. However, this method also does not ensure complete preservation of the flavor of the plants and satisfactory mechanical stability of the product.

The object of the invention is therefore to provide dried herb plant products of the aforementioned kind which do not have the aforementioned disadvantages of the state of the art and in particular are rice-resistant as well as non-crumbly and storage stable, and which can be readily reconstituted in aqueous liquids to form spice plants. aroma and color, at least to a large extent, correspond to fresh finely divided 25 spice plants.

This is achieved with the dried herbaceous plant products according to the invention, which are characterized by the characterizing part of claim 1.

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According to the present invention, acetic acid, which is a necessary component of the treatment known from DE-B-1,053,911, is not used. Further, according to the invention, substantially larger amounts of the water-soluble carrier defined in claim 1 under (a) are used, and it is also necessary according to the invention that the spice plants are stabilized as defined in claim 1 under (c).

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DK 160176 B

Thereby, a cleaner and better preserved aroma and satisfactory mechanical stability of the herb plant product according to the invention is obtained.

The invention is based on the recognition that herbaceous plants, optionally in a finely divided state, when dried in the presence of a water-soluble carrier as described in the claims which have been uniformly mixed with the plants, yields a dried herbaceous product which exhibits not only full 10 peaceable mechanical properties, ie. in particular, sufficient stability to shear forces, but when used in the preparation of food dishes from dehydrated food mixtures, seasoned therewith, is readily reconstituted in aqueous liquids for spice plant particles, such as m.h. aroma and color, come quite close and sometimes even on par with freshly harvested finely divided spice plants, even after prolonged storage.

The advantages of the invention are particularly noted with spice plants which have hitherto been known for their poor drying properties, such as especially leeks, fennel, red and green peppers, leaf celery and sweet marjoram as well as thyme, chervil, cress, chives, dill, dill, basil, tarragon and parsley.

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If an electrolyte, preferably potassium and more preferably sodium chloride, is used as a carrier and if the drying process is carried out in such a way that the aqueous liquid present and / or formed in the mixture is more or less constantly saturated with the electrolyte so that it exhibits a markedly reduced water activity value (aw ~ value) of at most 0.9, preferably at most 0.85 and most preferably below 0.8, it is sufficient to mix the carrier as uniformly as possible with the spice plants before for the times specified in the main claim and then drying the mixture in any of the generally known ways.

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DK 160176B

In this regard, it should be noted that it is essential only to add the electrolyte at the right time, while the subsequent drying process does not in any way need to be started and not terminated at all within the specified maximum times. However, it goes without saying that the commencement of the drying process must not be postponed unnecessarily, and usually the drying must be completed after 24 hours.

In this particular embodiment of the invention, the electrolyte insertion, especially if it is intended to be the only means of obtaining satisfactory stabilization, is relatively high, corresponding to from 25 to 300% by weight, calculated on the plant solids so that, depending upon the plant solids. of the final use of the plant product can sometimes be considered troublesome. In such cases, it is possible to keep the salt content of the product within certain limits by replacing a portion of the electrolyte with sugars which may or may not be hydrogenated. Furthermore, such mixtures of salt and sugars when used in vacuum drying as preferred according to the invention because the procedure is simple, have a particularly favorable behavior and, in recent experience, give particularly favorable drying results, also with respect to flavor storage.

Optionally, the salt content of the dried spice plant products of the invention may be kept low or may even be completely eliminated by replacing the electrolyte carrier in whole or in part with protein and / or optionally hydrogenated oligo and / or polysaccharides, preferably soluble, optionally hydrogenated maltopolysaccharides, and more. preferably maltodextrins, pregelatinized starch and / or so-called soluble or thin-boiling starch. In this case, as already pointed out, where the electrolyte addition is very small or even completely missing, a heat treatment according to 6

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criterion C2) in the main requirement to stabilize aroma and color.

With this heat treatment, rapid and uniform heating is preferably achieved by mixing the carbohydrate, protein and / or caseinate carrier with very little water and mixing the resulting viscous liquid with the herbaceous particles which will be uniformly encapsulated by the process. By this method it is possible to obtain not only a non-crumbly dried product which, due to "encapsulation effect", also shows a high degree of storage stability, but also a particularly accurate, smooth and precisely functioning temperature control during the heat treatment, since the carrier containing viscous liquid in the mixture 15 ensures a smooth and rapid heat transport.

Carriers which have been found to be particularly suitable for this embodiment of the invention are optionally hydrogenated maltopolysaccharides, such as maltodextrin and pregelatinized starch, as well as, in particular, so-called soluble, melted or thin-boiling starches.

It has also been found advantageous to buffer the mixture to be dried by adding alkali metal and / or alkaline earth metal salts of inorganic and / or organic acids, especially monosodium glutaminate, sodium citrate, a lactate, carbonate and / or phosphate, and / or a protein, in particular albumin and / or a caseinate, in a way that ensures that the pH of the cellular fluid of the herbs which normally stays within a natural range of from about 4 to about 5 and during the drying process tends to to go down further is raised to the range 4.5 - 7.5, preferably 5.0 - 7.0 and most preferably 5.4 - 6.7 and is maintained within this range during the drying process.

35 This provides even better stabilization with regard to aroma and especially color.

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A substance which has been found to be particularly advantageous for this purpose is sodium glutaminate, which also carries on in the finished dried herbal plant products its own known flavor enhancing activities.

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It is noted here that some of the starting materials described above as suitable for use in the invention may have several functions simultaneously. Most of the above buffers are e.g. also carriers.

10 On the other hand, it is possible to have one and the same function, e.g. the carrier, exercised by several substances simultaneously. In fact, working with such blends is usually advisable.

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This is exemplified by the following starting mixtures which have been found to be very suitable in the embodiment involving electrolyte carriers (parts by weight): 20 Fresh herbal salt-sodium monosodium glutaminate 60 30 5 5 50 15 30 5 25 In other carriers, such as in particular so-called "soluble starch" (eg "SNOWFLAKE® 6598", a product of Maizena GmbH), the advantages of carrier mixtures are not so clear, but also here it is advantageous to add small amounts of salt and monosodium glutaminate to the mixture to be dried.

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As far as drying itself is concerned, it is in principle possible to use any of the ordinary drying processes for the purposes of the invention, but vacuum drying has so far proved to give the best results.

With this type of drying it is recommended to keep a layer thickness of drying material of 20 - 30 mm and dry it 35

DK 160176B

8 at a temperature of not more than 60 ° C down to a residual moisture content of 2 - 3%, whereby it is advantageous to interrupt the energy supply during the last third of the drying period, thereby allowing the material to gradually cool down to about 40 ° C.

Vacuum drying usually provides solid blocks, which are however easy to comminute.

The following examples serve to illustrate the invention. In all the examples in which fresh herbs were used, the stabilization step (ie heating or combining with the electrolyte) took place within 5-10 hours of harvest. The products prepared according to Examples 15 were all characterized by excellent aroma and color and were practically indistinguishable from fresh products.

EXAMPLE 1 20

Fresh red pepper (paprika) (600 g seed-free) was blanched in water at 90 - 95 ° C and then mixed with 300 g of a commercially available protein ("Seralbin") containing 65% by weight wheat protein and 20% lactose , in a 25 laboratory chopper and finely divided for 2 - 3 minutes. The mixture was then vacuum dried in a layer of 2-3 cm. The temperature of the hot plate was 60 ° C, the pressure was about 933 Pa, and the drying time was about 6 hours. The obtained dried product was then grated to the desired particle size. EXAMPLE 2 600 g of fresh red pepper liberated from seeds were blanched in 35 water at 90 ° C and then mixed with 300 g of sodium caseinate. The resulting mixture was then filled into trays and treated as in Example 1.

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EXAMPLE 3

Fresh parsley leaves were blanched for one minute in a boiling solution of 100 parts by weight of sucrose in 100 parts by weight of 5 parts water. After pouring off the excess liquid, the blanched parsley was dried as in Example 1.

The dry product contained about 15-20% by weight of parsley solids.

EXAMPLE 4 100 kg of commercially traded frozen frozen basil was tempered one day at -10 ° C. Sodium chloride (32 kg), 15 monosodium glutaminate (9 kg) and sucrose (9 kg) were mixed in a chopper for 30 seconds. Then 50 kg of basil was added and the mixture was continued for 30 seconds, then the remaining 50 kg of basil was added and again mixed for 30 - 40 seconds.

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The basil thawed during mixing. The mixture was spread in portions of 5 kg each on plastic trays in layers with a depth of 3 cm. The product was vacuum dried at a temperature of the heating plates at 60 ° C for a period of 15 - 17 hours. During the first stage of drying, the pressure was about 2700 Pa, which pressure was reduced to 933 -1333 Pa during the last stage of drying. The resulting dehydrated herbal mixture, which contained 2 -3% moisture, was in the form of cakes which were broken down to the desired particle size in a Frewitt screen.

EXAMPLE 5

Fresh leaves of deciduous leaves (100 g) were rinsed with fresh-water and dried. 1200 g of sodium chloride was placed in a laboratory chopper and while the chopper was running at low speed, the washed leaves were added, and the mixture was stirred.

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10 genes were mixed for approx. 3 minutes. The mixture was spread on a plastic tray at a depth of 2 cm and dried under vacuum where the pressure was 1333 Pa and the temperature of the hot plate was about 65 ° C, for 7 hours. The yield was 5 77%.

EXAMPLE 6 200 g of sodium chloride and 50 g of sodium caseinate were premixed in a laboratory chopper. While the chopper was still running, 600 g of fresh parsley leaves (which had been washed and drained) were added and the material was mixed for 2-3 minutes. The mixture was then dried as in Example 1 with the drying time being 5 hours. The yield was 35 - 36%.

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Claims (8)

A rice-resistant herb plant product comprising dried 5 finely divided herbs and / or aromatic vegetables (herbs), characterized in that it (a) contains 10 to 99% by weight, based on the total dry weight, of at least one edible, water-soluble carrier selected from 10 to a ^) alkali metal and alkaline earth metal salts of inorganic and organic acids (electrolyte), 15 a2) proteins and a ^) optionally hydrogenated carbohydrates, and 20 b) prepared by drying any finely divided herbs which are freshly harvested and / or deep frozen in fresh harvested condition, in uniform mixing with the carrier at a temperature not exceeding 70 ° C in the product; c) the spice plants before or at the beginning of drying, ie. not more than 12 hours after harvesting and not more than 4 hours after comminution of the freshly harvested herbs or immediately after thawing of the frozen herbs has been stabilized by mixing with at least one electrolyte and / or 35 Cg) heating as quickly as possible to 50 - 150 ° C for from 2 seconds up to 1 hour and any instantaneous rapid cooling to 70 ° C or below. DK 160176 B Dried herbaceous plant product according to claim 1, characterized in that it contains 25 - 97% by weight and most preferably 50 - 94% by weight of the carrier. Dried herb plant product according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it contains as basil, parsley, leaves, dill, cress, chervil, sweet marjoram, thyme, celery, paprika, fennel and / or leek. 10 Dried herb plant product according to any one of claims 1-3, characterized in that the carrier consists at least in part of sodium and / or potassium chloride in an amount of 25 to 300% by weight, calculated on the plant solids. Dried herbaceous plant product according to any one of claims 1-4, characterized in that the carrier consists at least in part of at least one soluble, optionally hydrogenated maltopolysaccharide, especially maltodextrin, of soluble or thin-boiling starch and / or pregelatinized starch. Dried herb plant product according to any one of claims 25 to 5, characterized in that it is buffered with at least one alkali metal and / or alkaline earth metal salt of an inorganic or organic acid, especially monosodium glutamate, sodium citrate, a lactate, carbonate and / or phosphate, and / or a protein, especially albumin and / or a caseinate, to a pH of 4.5 - 7.5, preferably 5.0 - 7.0, and most preferably 5.4 - 6 , 7th Process for the preparation of non-crumbly, color and flavor stable, rice-resistant dried spice plant products according to any of claims 1-6 by drying any finely divided spice plants at a temperature not exceeding 70 ° C in the material, characterized in that DK 160176 B freshly harvested herbs at most 12 and preferably not more than 6 hours after harvesting and, optionally, no more than 4 and preferably no more than 2 hours after comminution or frozen herbs immediately after thawing 5 (a) mixed with at least one electrolyte carrier and / or b) heated as soon as possible to a temperature of 50 - 150 ° C, is kept at this temperature for from 5 seconds 10 to one hour and then optionally cooled again to 70 ° C or below, this heat treatment being carried out in all cases where the electrolyte addition is less than that of required for the water activity (a. value) in will the free liquid present or formed in the mixture be below 0.9, preferably below 0.85, and most preferably below 0.8, whereupon the herb plants thus treated are dried at a temperature not exceeding 70 ° C in the material and optionally fined to the desired particle size. Process according to claim 7, characterized in that the spice plants are pre-dried by mixing with at least one alkali metal and / or alkaline earth metal salt of an inorganic or organic acid, especially monosodium glutaminate, sodium citrate, a lactate, carbonate and acetate. / or phosphate, and / or a protein, especially albumin and / or a caseinate, to a pH in the range of 4.5 - 7.5, preferably 5.0 - 7.0, and most preferably 5.4 - 6, 7th 30 35