Research Article Effect of Frying Treatments on Texture and Colour Parameters of Deep Fat Fried Yellow Fleshed Cassava Chips A. B. Oyedeji, 1 O. P. Sobukola, 2 Folake Henshaw, 2 M. O. Adegunwa, 3 O. A. Ijabadeniyi, 1 L. O. Sanni, 2 and K. I. Tomlins 4 1 Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa 2 Department of Food Science and Technology, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria 3 Department of Hospitality and Tourism, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria 4 Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, London, UK Correspondence should be addressed to A. B. Oyedeji; jibanky2@gmail.com Received 14 February 2017; Accepted 29 March 2017; Published 4 May 2017 Academic Editor: Latiful Bari Copyright © 2017 A. B. Oyedeji et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Efects of frying treatments on texture (hardness) and colour parameters (, , , Δ) during deep fat frying of yellow feshed cassava root slices (TMS 01/1371) were investigated. Slices (dimension of 40 mm × 25 mm × 3 mm) were divided into three portions and subjected to vacuum frying (fresh slices) and atmospheric frying (fresh and predried slices) and equivalent thermal driving forces (ETDF) of 60 ∘ C, 70 ∘ C, and 80 ∘ C were maintained during frying. Te quality attributes investigated were best preserved in vacuum fried chips. Te overall colour change in chips fried under vacuum conditions at 118 ∘ C and 8 min was the least (21.20) compared to fresh and atmospherically predried ones (16.69 and 14.81, resp.). A sharp reduction in the breaking force was obtained for all frying treatments afer 8 min and this efect was the least in vacuum fried chips. First-order kinetics modeled the changes in quality attributes for all the temperatures investigated. Rate constants  (min −1 ) obtained for vacuum frying were almost equal to that of atmospheric frying while activation energies for hardness and colour change were 53.30 and 467.11KJ/mol, respectively. Quality attributes studied were best preserved during vacuum frying. 1. Introduction Frying as a complex unit operation is essentially a cooking process that has been widely used in the food industry. Traditionally, it involves the immersion of foods in frying oil chambers, mostly at temperatures above the boiling point of water, bringing about a counter-fow of water bubbles and oil on the surface of the product [1]. Texture is a quality attribute which is important in determining the acceptability of fried products as the resulting texture of fried foods is dependent on the properties of raw materials such as starch content, size of starch granules, cell wall polysac- charides, nonstarch polysaccharides, pectin substances, and the processing conditions which include frying time and temperature [2]. Hardness is a key texture parameter and it depends on physical and chemical changes such as release of intracellular materials, starch gelatinization, dehydration, crust formation, breakdown of adhesive forces between cells, water evaporation, and tissue expansion [3]. Te resulting colour of foods processed in a high heat unit operation is also a major quality attribute as it plays an important role in the perception of consumers about the foods at the point of purchase. Parameters of colour such as lightness (), redness (), and yellowness () have been widely used in recent times to evaluate colour changes between the raw food materials and fnal products [4]. Deep fat frying is traditionally carried out at atmospheric pressure conditions and high temperatures of up to 180 ∘ C (atmospheric frying). However, it had been proven that frying under atmospheric conditions leads to loss of desirable colour and textural characteristic of the resulting products [5]. Tis could be attributed to destruction of colour components of foods and excessive crust formation due to high frying temperatures. Prefrying treatments aimed at improving the resulting colour and texture of fried food products had earlier been investigated. Califano and Calvelo [6] used blanching as Hindawi Journal of Food Quality Volume 2017, Article ID 8373801, 10 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/8373801