Quality of buffalo meat burger containing legume flours as binders

The effect of addition of different decorticated legume flours, viz., soya bean, bengal gram, green gram and black gram, on the quality of buffalo meat burger was studied. The burgers consisted of optimized quantities of roasted or unroasted legume flour, spices and common salt. Inclusion of roasted black gram flour registered the highest yield of 95.7%, lowest shrinkage of 5% and lowest fat absorption of 26.6% on frying. Protein content of 18-20% was highest in the soya flour formulation. Free fatty acid (FFA) values (as% oleic) increased from 14.3 to 17.3 in freshly prepared samples (before frying) to 16.0-19.4 in 4 in frozen (-16 +/- 2 degreesC) stored samples and fried samples had about 25% lower FFA values. Formulations with roasted flours registered lower thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values (mg malonaldehyde/kg sample) of 0.6-1.5 as against 0.6-2.1 for unroasted flours before frying. The burgers prepared with any of these binders were organoleptically acceptable even after storage at -16 2 degreesC for 4 months., However. the burger with black gram dhal (dehulled split legume) flour had better sensory quality attributes compared to other legumes. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.