1Assistant Professor, Department of Food Processing Technology, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore-14
2Department of Food and Agricultural Process Engineering, TNAU, Coimbatore
3Managing trustee, Ramasamy Chinnamal Trust
Online published on 9 June, 2016.
Ready-To-Eat (RTE) foods are considered the “Ultimate processed foods” with very high value addition. Demand of ready-to-eat products is on a constant rise and hence ready-to-eat mushroom gravy and mushroom soup was prepared, packed and stored in retortable pouches. The mushroom was washed and sliced. The sliced mushroom of about 50g was filled in pouches followed by 50g curry concentrate (oil fried onions, garlic, ginger and spices). Mushroom soup of about 150g was packed. The filled pouches were sealed and then subjected to thermal processing in a pilot model steam air mix retort at 121°C for specified process time for both the products calculated by Balls formula method. The processed pouches were cooled and stored in clean dry place at ambient conditions. pH, sensory evaluation and microbial analysis were carried out to determine the quality of the packed mushroom at regular intervals for a storage period of 3 months. The pH of mushroom gravy and soup was 5.65 and 6.00 respectively and this value remained constant throughout the storage period of 3 months. The sensory evaluation of both the product had a good overall acceptability.
