Standardization of cut size and pre-drying time of beef to mainstream pastoral processing in Kenya’s meat industry

Abstract

Deep-fried and sun-dried meat products represent a large part of the traditional meat products from pastoral regions of sub-Saharan Africa. However, unlike the sun-dried products, deep-fried products are not properly mainstreamed into the meat industry due to lack of product standardization, especially in terms of the size of cut and product quality. This study was designed to standardize the cut and pre-drying time with a view to improving the product quality at processing. Three sets of beef chunks from the silverside portion of a mature Borana bull was cut into sizes 10, 15 and 20 mm. Each set was then pre-dried in a thermostatically controlled air oven at 40 °C each for 0, 60 and 120 min then deep-fried in palm oil at 170 °C for 10 min. The products were subjected to chemical analysis based on AOAC methods and sensory analysis based on a seven-point hedonic rating scale. Results show that the products had moisture contents between 14.1% and 19.4%, protein between 52.1% and 66.5%, lipids between 10.8% and 15.4% and energy between 329.7 and 404.2 kcal/100 g. Peroxide values were within acceptable limits and ranged between 0.5 and 3.7 mEq/kg. Sensory evaluation showed that the 20-mm cuts without pre-drying had significantly the highest scores of colour, appearance, oiliness and size acceptability (P ≤ 0.05). On the other hand, the 15-mm cuts pre-dried for 120 min had significantly the highest protein and energy contents and significantly the lowest moisture, fat and peroxide values. The study concludes that in terms of nutritional quality, the 15-mm cut, pre-dried for 120 min, would be most suited for commercialization while, if the decision was to be based on sensory attributes, the 20-mm chunks that have not been pre-dried would be the best.