Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Research International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodres Eﬀect of high-pressure treatment on taste and metabolite proﬁles of ducks with two diﬀerent vinasse-curing processes Xiaowei Lou a , Yangfang Ye a , Ying Wang a , Yangying Sun a , Daodong Pan a,b , Jinxuan Cao a, ⁎ a Key Laboratory of Animal Protein Food Processing Technology of Zhejiang Province, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China b Department of Food Science and Technology, Ginling College, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China ARTICLE INFO Keywords: High-pressure Vinasse-dry-cured duck Vinasse-wet-cured duck Taste proﬁle Metabolite proﬁle Chemical compounds studied in this article: Leucine (PubChem CID: 6106) Alanine (PubChem CID: 5950) Lactate (PubChem CID: 612) Glutamine (PubChem CID: 5961) Glycerophosphocholine (PubChem CID: 71920) Creatine (PubChem CID: 586) Taurine (PubChem CID: 1123) Glycine (PubChem CID: 750) Glucose (PubChem CID: 5793);Inosine monophosphate (PubChem CID: 8582) ABSTRACT The eﬀect of high-pressure (HP) (0.1, 150 and 300 MPa, 15 min) on taste proﬁles of vinasse-cured ducks was investigated; the metabolite proﬁles were determined using 1 H NMR. HP at 150 MPa increased the taste intensity of products compared with the controls, while HP at 300 MPa did not further improve their taste compared with 150 MPa treated samples. The metabonome of vinasse-cured ducks was dominated by 27 metabolites. HP in- creased amino acids, glucose, alkaloids and organic acids, but decreased inosine monophosphate and its deri- vatives, compared with the controls. The increments of metabolites in vinasse-dry-cured duck were higher than those in vinasse-wet-cured duck. The change of metabolites could be related to the enzyme activity, the de- gradations of proteins, sugars and nucleotides, and the permeation from vinasse-curing agents to duck meat. These ﬁndings suggest that 150 MPa treatment was eﬀective to improve the taste of vinasse-cured duck. 1. Introduction Vinasse-cured duck (VCD) is a unique traditional meat product in China, which has been popular in the southern regions for centuries. It is produced by boiling, salting and vinasse-curing. There are two kinds of vinasse-curing methods of VCD: dry-curing and wet-curing. Dry vi- nasse is obtained by mixing the distilling sediment of yellow rice wine with spices, and aging for 3 years. Vinasse-dry-cured duck (VDCD) is cured with dry vinasse directly, while vinasse-wet-cured duck (VWCD) is immersed in vinasse sauce (extracted from dry vinasse and rice wine, and added duck soup) after salting. Flavor plays a vital role in the consumers' acceptability of duck meat products (Lorenzo, Temperán, Bermúdez, Purriños, & Franco, 2011). As one of the major parts of ﬂavor, taste is generally related to the bio- chemical composition (namely metabolite proﬁle) of the products. Several studies have reported that amino acids, peptides and nucleo- tides were the main taste-active compounds in duck meat and duck meat products (Liu, Pan, Ye, & Cao, 2013; Liu, Xu, & Zhou, 2007). Compared with other duck products, VCD has a strong characteristic taste, which is considered to be mainly generated during vinasse- curing. Generally, the vinasse-curing time is 7 to 14 days. Some con- sumers believe that VCD could have a stronger taste with longer curing time. They would prefer VCD with stronger taste. However, for meat industry, the products with shorter processing time are more econom- ical than that with longer processing time. Therefore, it is essential to explore how to improve the procedure and the quality of VCD within a certain time. As an advanced technology, high-pressure (HP) has been widely used in muscle food processing for sensory and safety purposes over the past few decades (Simonin, Duranton, & De Lamballerie, 2012). Chen et al. (2010) suggested that the application of HP above 300 MPa could decrease water binding capacity, a value and b value, and increase L value and textural parameters of duck muscle gels. In addition, the higher the pressure is performed, the higher the cost of the HP treat- ment is. Therefore, the relatively low HP might be more suitable than relatively high HP for duck meat products. Several studies reported that HP under 300 MPa could enhance the levels of taste-active compounds in meat products. Ohmori, Shigehisa, Taji, and Hayashi (1991) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2017.11.084 Received 31 August 2017; Received in revised form 23 November 2017; Accepted 30 November 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: caojinxuan@nbu.edu.cn (J. Cao). Food Research International 105 (2018) 703–712 Available online 02 December 2017 0963-9969/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T