Characteristics of beef burger as influenced by various types of lemon albedo

Citrus fruits constitute an underused source of fibre and antioxidants, particularly albedo, and the potential for its use is explored. Lemon albedo was prepared from pith following four different methods either cooking or/and drying and mincing, These ingredients were added at 0%, 2.5%, 5% and 7.5% levels to a beef burger mix and the burgers were evaluated for quality attributes including: compositional analysis, cooking characteristics, fat oxidation, pH, physical tests (included colour and texture profile analysis) and a range of sensory attributes using a ranking test. The type of albedo slightly influenced the lipid oxidation and pH of samples, while the cooking properties were significantly improved by some of the added treatment materials with average increments of 5.5-11% oil treatment meat patties when compared with control samples. Instrumental colour testing showed some differences oil lightness, yellowness and redness, while hardness, gumminess, springiness and chewiness were in general, consistently higher as albedo concentration increased. The dry ingredient also had a stronger effect. The sensory evaluation highlighted significant differences on redness and hardness. Samples were also ranked distinctly in relation to their overall acceptance where only treatments with raw albedo compared poorly to the rest of samples, which indicates potential to develop this material as a food ingredient. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.