Effect of deep-fat frying on sensory and textural attributes of pellet snacks

In this paper, the effects of several frying parameters on the quality of indirect expanded snacks were studied. Pellets, in two colors of yellow and green, were deep-fat fried at 150, 170, and 190 °C for 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 min; then, subjected to uniaxial compression test and sensory analysis. The results showed that hardness, fracture force and apparent modulus of elasticity reduced with increase in frying time and temperature due to puffing samples and decrease in crust thickness. In contrast, higher frying temperature improved the crispness of samples. Panelists preferred the flavor, color, and total acceptance of yellow samples to the green ones. Moreover, principal component analysis (PCA) of instrumental and sensory data provided important information for the correlation of objective and sensory properties.