Abstract:
Frozen French fries and other frozen products are generating billions of dollars in sales worldwide each year. In Sri Lanka, imported frozen potato French fries are available in supermarkets as a demanding commodity and they are served as a popular fast food in most of the restaurants and fast-food outlets. The main objective of this research is the development of a value-added as well as consumer demanded product likes French fries from cassava Manihot esculenta, var.MU-51),as an altemative to potato-based French fries.
First approach was to prepare the cassava fries, selecting the most appropriate partial cooking times at 90°C in hot water and under steam. The appropriate time with preparations in hot water and steam were used to select the most appropriate partial-cooking method. The cassava fries prepared with appropriate partial-cooking method were used to determine the effect of par-fried frozen conditions and the effect of selected packaging material (polythene 300 gauge) for the samples stored under frozen condition for 2 days and 38 days. Cassava fries samples were sensorily evaluated by 30 untrained panelists using a standard 9 point Hedonic scale in each step of production. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were performed for collected data under
statistical analysis.
Based on the findings, the correct partial-cooking times were identified as 8 minutes and 10 minutes in hot water and under steam, respectively. There were significant differences between samples, not only treated in hot water and steam but also par-fried frozen sample and untreated sample. According to the median values, hot water treated sample and par-fried frozen sample were identified as the best in each occasion. But there was no significant difference between storage periods in the samples at frozen condition. Physico-chemical and proximate assessment of par-fried frozen cassava fries sample revealed 18.7% moisture, 13.2% free fat and 1.09% crude protein. Free HCN content in that sample was detected as 0.54mg/kg of fried cassava fries.
Due to the perishable nature of the cassava roots, it is difficult to store them in bulk. Therefore,one of the potential areas of growth for cassava as a food in Sri Lanka is in the form of a processed convenience food, such as frozen cassava fries. As such, it could well compete with other imported frozen ready-to-eat carbohydrate products, enjoying similar demand and income elasticities and subsequent positive future growth rates.
