Quality improvement of silver carp fingers by optimizing the level of major elements influencing texture

A three-component Mixture Design was used to investigate the effect of different components of breadcrumbs, textured soy protein (TSP) and low-methoxyl pectin and their interactions on textural properties of an existing fish finger. The result indicated that the pectin had a more notable influence than TSP and breadcrumbs on all textural parameters as pectin proportion increased. At a higher proportion (0.9 - 1.2%), pectin improved essentially hardness, cohesiveness, springiness, gumminess, and chewiness of fish fingers measured by instrumental texture analysis. But sensory properties of formulated prototypes were decreased in this range of pectin. The optimum region consisted of 2 mixtures containing 5.35% TSP, 10.35% breadcrumbs and 0.3% pectin; and 4.8% TSP, 10.6% breadcrumbs and 0.6% pectin. The results indicated that prototypes containing 0.6% pectin were more stable than the other fish fingers during 6-month storage. The texture parameters obtained by instrumental methods were also strongly correlated with those obtained from sensory analysis.