Effect of Cooking Temperature on Sun Drying and Quality Attributes of Broken Rice based Traditional Snack Food (Vadam)

The traditional snack food (vadam) was prepared using broken rice flour (size 40 mm) and cooking in water at 80, 90 and 100°C for 1 to 3 minutes. The cooked batter was spread as vadam on muslin cloth and sun dried. The drying characteristics and other quality attributes like, size, colour, fat content after frying and textural properties were assessed. Vadam took 7 to 9 hours for drying. The vadam samples were fried by deep fat frying and microwave frying (150 W level) for 1, 2 and 3 minutes and assessed for quality. Higher cooking temperature resulted in lesser drying time. Thickness of the raw and fried vadam for the sample cooked at 100°C was 0.67 mm and 1.38 mm, and diameter was 43.28 mm and 58 mm, respectively. The maximum values of hardness and fracturability were 1.141N and 2.324 mm, respectively for raw vadam cooked at 80°C and the minimum values of hardness and fracturability were 0.026 N and 0.2 mm, respectively for the vadam made by cooking at 80°C and microwave oven fried for 1 minute. The residual fat in the deep fat fried vadam samples ranged from 40.38 to 51.89% and increased with cooking temperature. Consumer acceptance of vadam prepared at 90°C flour cooking temperature was high with the sensory score of 8.8.