JPH0847367A - Bean curd-like food mix - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a bean curd-like food capable of being cooked by heating, containing milk components and excellent in long-term storage. CONSTITUTION:This bean curd-like food mix is prepared by blending the whole milk powder with whey protein obtained from cheese whey, using the resultant mixture as the main raw material and admixing a texture-improving agent containing corn starch, a hydrophilic emulsifier and a polyphosphoric acid salt respectively in a suitable amount therewith. Defatted milk powder may be further added thereto. In addition, white egg powder or whole egg powder of chicken egg may be used in place of whey protein. Accordingly, if this mix is dissolved in a suitable amount of hot water with stirring, heated and subsequently cooled, a bean curd-like food can be produced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

The present invention relates to a tofu-like food element,
In particular, the present invention relates to an instant food material that can easily make a tofu-like or cheese-like food containing a milk component.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Milk is a food with excellent nutritional value that contains various nutrients such as proteins, lipids, and minerals in a well-balanced manner, but in recent years, due to the expansion of dairy farming, liberalization of imports of dairy products, and the economic downturn in Japan. Overproduction of raw milk has become a social problem due to reduced consumption of dairy products.

On the other hand, as one of various foods for increasing the consumption of milk, so-called milk tofu obtained by solidifying milk components in a tofu form has been conventionally provided. However, the production of this milk tofu has the following technical difficulties. In other words, casein, which is the main component of milk protein, has the property that it does not easily coagulate even when heated, and even when heated with a coagulant, it does not form a uniform gel unlike soy protein, resulting in whey separation. It will end up.

[0004] Therefore, in the production of conventional milk tofu, a method of adding various sizing agents to milk (or a milk powder solution), a method of increasing whey protein or casein in milk to lactic acid ferment, or adding an acid. A method of strengthening the gel structure of casein to suppress the separation of whey, and a method of adding glucono delta lactone and an acid as required to form a yogurt-like structure have been adopted.

[0005]

By the way, such conventional milk tofu still has room for improvement in order to be widely used as a cooking material. Firstly, the conventional milk tofu is related to coagulation or acid gelation of the pasting agent, but it can maintain the gel state at a relatively low temperature, but becomes a dispersed state when heated or a casein-based precipitate. This is because it forms something that cannot be used for cooking.

For example, as such a conventional milk tofu, skim milk powder is added to milk in an amount of 5 to 10% to increase the protein content, to which calcium sulfate and gluconodeltalactone are added in appropriate amounts, and further as various thickening agents. Add one or two or three kinds of gums, agar, gelatin, pectin, carboxymethylcellulose, starch, propylene glycol, alginate, sodium alginate, carrageenan, etc. to the raw material and add 0.5-2% to it and heat. What is cooled and solidified is known, but when the milk tofu is heated as a cooking material, it is completely dissolved and dispersed.

Secondly, conventional milk tofu generally includes a step of filtering coagulated milk and squeezing it in the production thereof, but in these steps, most nutritional components other than proteins and lipids are discharged. , The various other nutrients in milk have been thrown away.

[0008] Third, in the present day when the preservation of foods is required to be improved with the diversification of lifestyles, conventional milk tofu has a difficulty that it cannot be preserved for a long period of time.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to obtain a tofu-like food which can be cooked with heat and has a wide range of applications as a cooking material, contains various nutrients contained in milk, has a high nutritional value, and can be stored for a long period of time. Especially.

[0010]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object and achieve the object, the invention of claim 1 is based on a mixture of whole milk powder with whey protein obtained from cheese whey. In addition, powdered corn starch as a texture improving agent, a hydrophilic emulsifier and a polymeric phosphate are mixed in an appropriate amount.

[0012] The invention of claim 2 is based on a mixture of whole milk powder with skim milk powder and whey protein obtained from cheese whey as a main material, and powdered corn starch as a texture improving agent and hydrophilicity. It is characterized in that an emulsifier and a polymerized phosphate are mixed in appropriate amounts.

[0012] The invention of claim 3 is mainly composed of a mixture of skim milk powder and skim milk powder and hen egg white powder or whole egg powder, and powdered corn starch as a texture improving agent and a hydrophilic emulsifier. And an appropriate amount of polymerized phosphate are mixed. The polymer phosphate mixed in these inventions is preferably hexametaphosphate or tetrapolyphosphate.

In order to obtain a complete food in terms of nutrition,
Dietary fiber may be added and β-carotene or vitamin A may be added. Furthermore, in order to improve convenience as an instant, packaging may be performed as a liquid food material.

[0014]

The function of the tofu-like food of the present invention is in the form of powder, and water is added to the tofu-like food (for example, dissolved in hot water), and the mixture is heated and then cooled to obtain a tofu-like food (milk tofu). Can be done.

As a result of various studies on protein gel formation, the present inventor found that whey protein and egg white separated from whey, which is a by-product of cheese production, have heat coagulation properties and have uniform gel formation ability. It was That is, whey protein (or egg white) is added to milk, and cornstarch as a tissue improving agent,
An emulsion was prepared by adding an appropriate amount of emulsifier and polymerized phosphate, and when this was heated, a uniform gel was formed.
Further, a gel structure could be obtained in exactly the same manner by using liquid milk prepared by dissolving whole milk powder instead of milk.
Furthermore, it was also found that the gel structure becomes stronger when skim milk powder is added.

[0016] The present invention is based on the above findings. In the tofu-like food products of claims 1 and 2, whole milk powder is whey protein obtained from cheese whey, and also tofu-like food product of claim 3. In eggplant, egg white powder (or whole egg powder) is added. Therefore, if these powders are dissolved in water (hot water) and subjected to heat treatment, a uniform gel is formed and a tofu-like food (milk tofu) can be obtained. Moreover, since the milk tofu thus obtained is related to heat coagulation, it does not dissolve and disperse like conventional milk tofu even when heated, for example, soup or sukiyaki, boiled food, fried food. It can be widely used for various cooking.

Furthermore, in the tofu-like food material of claims 2 and 3 to which skim milk powder is added, a stronger gel structure is formed, so that when this is used for various cooking, simmering etc. may occur. It never happens. The addition of skim milk powder also increases the protein and calcium content of milk tofu.

Since the tofu-like food of the present invention is basically powdery, it can be stored for a long period of time, for example, for one year or longer. On the other hand, when eating, since it is sufficient to perform a simple operation of adding water and heating as described above, it can be used as a simple instant food. Of course, it can be used as a liquid instant foodstuff as described in claim 6 by performing sufficient sterilization treatment and airtight packaging. In the liquid state, the tofu-like food can be obtained more easily by boiling in a pack.

There is cheese as a food using milk as in the present invention, but the cheese currently provided is obtained by adding lactic acid bacteria and an enzyme to milk to coagulate casein protein and milk fat in milk to ferment it. More than half of the other milk components are discharged as whey. On the other hand, since the present invention can utilize almost all milk components, it is also a food excellent in terms of utilization of milk components and has a high nutritional value.

Further, as described in claim 4, the element of the tofu-like food may add a dietary fiber component, which is based on the following reason. Currently, the average intake of dietary fiber in Japanese is estimated to be 15 to 17 g per day, and this low intake causes constipation, especially in women and the elderly, and long-term retention of harmful substances in the large intestine. This increases the risk of colorectal cancer.

Since it is said that about 10 g of the fiber intake is suitable per 1000 kcal, the target intake amount per day is 20 to 10 to prevent constipation.
30 g is desirable. Therefore, in order to supplement the shortage of fiber, for example, about 5 g of dietary fiber is added per 100 g of milk tofu. As the dietary fiber, for example, polydextrose is added. The component ratio in this case is, for example, 24 g of whole milk powder, 10 g of skim milk powder, 10 g of egg white powder, 2 g of corn starch, and 10 g of polydextrose to a small amount of emulsifier and phosphate.

As described in claim 5, β-carotene or vitamin A may be added to the tofu-like food element for the following reason. That is, it is well known that green-yellow vegetables tend to reduce the risk of carcinogenesis, but the greatest characteristic of the components of green-yellow vegetables is that they contain a large amount of carotenoids represented by β-carotene.

Further, since β-carotene is converted into vitamin A in vivo, it is considered that vitamin A is one of the substances having a carcinogenic inhibitory action like β-carotene. by the way,
Originally, milk also contained 150 vitamins A and β-carotene.
IU / 100g is included, but the amount of vitamin A required for Japanese people is said to be about 2000IU at present, so the average amount of food is insufficient, that is, 500IU or less (0.3mg / 100g of product) or less. The amount of β-carotene (or vitamin A) may be added.

[0024]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below. In the first example, whole milk powder and whey protein are used as main materials, and cornstarch as a texture improving agent, emulsifier powder and hexametaphosphate are added, and have the following weight composition. Whole milk powder 24 g Whey protein 20 g Corn starch 2 g Emulsifier powder 0.6 g Hexametaphosphate 0.06 g In addition, whey protein is 7 by weight ratio to whole milk powder.
It is preferably 5% or more, and the present inventor has confirmed that if it is less than this, a good tofu-like food cannot be obtained.

The second embodiment is obtained by adding skim milk powder to the first embodiment and has the following composition. Whole milk powder 24 g Whey protein 10 g Non-fat milk powder 10 g Corn starch 2 g Emulsifier powder 0.6 g Hexametaphosphate 0.06 g In addition, the required minimum amount of whey protein in this example is 37.5% by weight relative to the whole milk milk powder. Is.

The third embodiment is a blend of egg white powder (or whole egg powder) instead of the whey protein of the second embodiment and has the following composition. Whole milk powder 24 g Non-fat milk powder 10 g Chicken egg white powder (or whole egg powder) 10 g Corn starch 2 g Emulsifier powder 0.6 g Hexametaphosphate 0.06 g In addition, the required minimum amount of egg white powder (or whole egg powder) in this example is , 33% by weight relative to the whole milk powder. In addition, the amount of skim milk powder in the second and third embodiments is 40 to 50% by weight with respect to the total milk powder.

These examples are powders in which the respective constituent materials are mixed, but when commercialized, for example, an appropriate amount may be packed and sold as an instant food. On the other hand, when eating, the mixed powder is 30 to 40 ° C.
It is sufficiently stirred to dissolve in 200 ml of warm water, put in a container with a lid and heated and solidified at 90 to 95 ° C. for 20 to 25 minutes, or heated and solidified in a microwave oven for 2 to 3 minutes. When the mixed powder is dissolved in warm water, suitable seasonings, vegetables, mushrooms, etc. may be added, and cooking can be enjoyed according to taste.

The present invention is not limited to the composition of the embodiment, and other materials may be added. For example, if about 5% of polydextrose is mixed with the powder (mixed powder) of the above-mentioned embodiment, the fiber content in the food is strengthened and constipation can be prevented. In addition, by adding 1 to 2% of powder of sea urchin, scallop, crab, shrimp, etc. according to taste, a tofu-like food having a sea urchin flavor, scallop flavor, etc. can be obtained. It can also be used as a material for making cheesecake, mousse and other confectionery.

The composition of the tofu-like foods of the examples is compared with that of the conventional soybean tofu, as shown in the following table.

[0030]

[Table 1]

As can be seen from the table, this tofu-like food has a higher nutritional value than soybean tofu because the main ingredient is dairy products or partly egg white powder, and in particular it contains abundant protein, calcium and vitamin B _2. In addition, the total solid content is high. Moreover, the taste was excellent, and as a result of the tasting survey, many people evaluated it as delicious.

The tofu-like food material of the present invention can be stored for a long period of one year or more in a powder state, but can be stored for a longer period than conventional soybean tofu even in a solid state of tofu. Is possible. Table 2 shows the results of the bacteria test when the tofu-like food solidified in a tofu form was stored in a refrigerator (internal temperature of 10 ° C or lower).

[0033]

[Table 2]

As is clear from the table, even if stored in the refrigerator for 1 month or more, almost no bacterial growth was observed and the flavor was not abnormal.

[0035]

As described above, according to the tofu-like food product of the present invention, a delicious tofu-like food product containing various nutrients contained in milk can be obtained by a simple operation. Further, since the tofu-like food obtained by such an operation is heated and solidified, it can be eaten as it is as a nutritional food (for example, as a cold food or cold food), but it can also be used for soup, sukiyaki, boiled food, fried food, etc. It can be widely used for heating and cooking, and opens a new field of milk usage. In addition, since the tofu-like food material is in the form of dry powder, it can be stored for a long period of time.
Further, since the constituent materials are generally easily available, they have sufficient marketability economically and can contribute to the expansion of milk consumption.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A method in which whole milk powder is blended with whey protein obtained from cheese whey as a main material, and an appropriate amount of powdery corn starch, a hydrophilic emulsifier and a polymeric phosphate are mixed as a texture improving agent in an appropriate amount. A tofu-like food element characterized by. 2. A skimmed milk powder mixed with skim milk powder and whey protein obtained from cheese whey is used as a main material, and a suitable amount of powdery corn starch, a hydrophilic emulsifier and a polymer are added to this as a texture improving agent. An element of a tofu-like food characterized by mixing an appropriate amount of phosphate. 3. A skimmed milk powder mixed with skimmed milk powder and hen egg white powder or whole egg powder is used as a main material, and a suitable amount of powdered corn starch, a hydrophilic emulsifier and a polymerized phosphorus is added to this as a tissue improving agent. An element of a tofu-like food characterized by mixing an appropriate amount of acid salt. 4. The tofu-like food element according to claim 1, wherein a dietary fiber component is added to the components described in each of the above claims. 5. The tofu-like food element according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein at least one of β-carotene and vitamin A is added to the components described in each of the above claims. 6. The tofu-like food element according to claim 1, which is a liquid containing the components according to each of the above claims.