The Quality Characteristics of Ready-to-Eat Empal Gentong Affected by Meat Pre-Cooking

The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of pre-cooking treatments on the quality characteristics of ready-to-eat (RTE) empal gentong. Raw beef meat was pre-cooked in water bath at 90??C for 0 min (C), 10 min (T1), 20 min (T2), and 30 min (T3) prior to retorting process at 121??C and pressure at 70,000 Pa. Results showed that pre-cooking treatments in all treated samples could reduce fat contents in empal gentong???s meat by 0.02% (T1), 0.28% (T2), and 1.13% (T3) respectively. Highest precooking time tends to increase the pH and CIE a* values. However, CIE b* values, water holding capacity, and sensory analysis were not affected by pre-cooking duration which must have been affected by sterilization process after pre-cooking. In conclusion, pre-cooking treatment before sterilization in producing empal gentong is a probable technique to reduce its fat content and improve its physical quality. A specific treatment at 90??C for 10 min is recommended to achieve optimum quality of RTE empal gentong???s meat.

Automated summary

The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of pre-cooking treatments on the quality characteristics of ready-to-eat empal gentong. The results showed that pre-cooking treatments reduced the fat content of empal gentong's meat without affecting its color and water holding capacity. A longer pre-cooking time increased the pH and color values. Therefore, pre-cooking treatment can be used to reduce the fat content and improve the physical quality of empal gentong.