BIODIVERSITAS ISSN: 1412-033X Volume 22, Number 8, August 2021 E-ISSN: 2085-4722 Pages: 3327-3332 DOI: 10.13057/biodiv/d220828 Variability and relationship of six Indonesian shallots (Allium cepa var. ascalonicum) cultivars based on amino acid profiles and fried shallot’s sensory characteristics OLIVIA YOFANANDA 1 , SOBIR 2 , C. HANNY WIJAYA 1,♥ , HANIFAH NURYANI LIOE 1 1 Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Jl. Kamfer, IPB Darmaga Campus, Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia. Tel./fax.: +62-251-8626725,  email: channywijaya@apps.ipb.ac.id 2 Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Jl. Kamfer, IPB Darmaga Campus, Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia Manuscript received: 16 April 2021. Revision accepted: 20 July 2021. Abstract. Yofananda O, Sobir, Wijaya CH, Lioe HN. 2021. Variability and relationship of six Indonesian shallots (Allium cepa var. ascalonicum) cultivars based on amino acid profiles and fried shallot’s sensory characteristics. Biodiversitas 22: 3327-3332. Shallot is an essential spice in the daily menu and processed food due to its unique flavor. Therefore information regarding the correlated compounds responsible for flavor in several cultivars of shallot will be important to elucidate. Since the amino acids profile is a key component of flavor character, this study aimed to determine the variability of amino acid profiles among six shallot cultivars related to fried shallot’s sensory characteristics. The six shallot cultivars were Bima Brebes, Bauji, Batu Ijo, Tajuk, Super Philip, and Rubaru. The shallot bulb was cultivated in the same area. The bulb size was analyzed using an analytical balance, the amino acids profile was analyzed using HPLC instrument, and sensory characteristics of fried shallots were analyzed using the rate-all-that-apply descriptive method. The result showed that the shallots contained a high content of glutamic acid, arginine, and aspartic acid. Based on fresh weight, Batu Ijo was significantly different than the other cultivars which comprised Tajuk, Rubaru, Bauji, Super Philip and Bima Brebes. Clustering based on amino acid profiles of the fresh bulb, they were divided into three groups. The first group consisted only Bauji, and the second group consisted of Rubaru, Batu Ijo, Super Philip and Tajuk, the third group was only Bima Brebes. Based on the sensory characteristics of fried shallots, they were divided into three groups. The first group comprised of Bauji and Tajuk, the second group comprised of Rubaru alone, and the third group comprised of Batu Ijo, Super Philip, and Bima Brebes. The Pearson correlation analysis showed that L-phenylalanine, L-arginine, and glycine have a significant positive correlation with a sweet taste of fried shallot, indicated that amino acids profile is an important parameter for shallot flavor. Keywords: amino acid, biodiversity, clustering, flavor, fried shallots INTRODUCTION Shallot is widely used as a cooking spice, medicine, and commercially processed product. As part of the Allium family, fresh shallots have a strong flavor pungency character. The precursor flavor of Alliums is alk(en)yl- cysteine-sulfoxide. In other Allium family, such as garlic, it was found that this commodity could improve the taste when added to the umami solution (Ueda et al. 1990), such as Chinese soup and chicken broth. Roasted garlic as processed Allium, has also been found to improve taste (Wakamatsu et al. 2016). Besides being added in the fresh form to be a cooking spice, fried shallots are also marketed as a commercial product. The distinctive taste of fried shallots makes it an additional ingredient in the food. Commercially, fried shallots are sold by providing cultivar brandings such as Bima Brebes and Sumenep fried shallots. The distinctive flavor formed by each cultivar may be the reason for the branding of shallot cultivars. The diversity of shallots has been widely studied based on morphological markers (Sari et al. 2017; Major et al. 2018; Herlina et al. 2019a), volatile profiles (Galingging et al. 2018), and genetic markers (Herlina et al. 2019b). The characteristics of fried shallots desired by consumers’ have high intensity of savory taste, fragrant sulfury aroma, and crispness. In contrast, bitter taste and rancid aroma are undesirable attributes of the product (Yofananda et al. 2020). The sensory characteristics that appear in a product are closely related to the chemical composition of a commodity, this has been studied in almond (Franklin and Mitchell 2019) and mango (Sung et al. 2019). In the production process of fried shallots through the frying process, the Maillard reaction is one of the most common reactions that occurred (Chang et al. 2020). This reaction occurs due to high temperatures involving amino acids and reducing sugars contained in the raw material (Chang et al. 2020). The content of sugars, and ten amino acids in shallots have been studied by Soininen et al. (2014). Vu et al. (2013) studied the content of sugar, phenolic, quercetin and precursor flavor of several shallot landraces in Vietnam and six countries. Ferioli and D’Antuono (2015) also studied the composition of phenolic and flavor components of shallot from Italy, the composition of fructose, glucose, sucrose, fructan, flavonoid, and several S-alk(en)yl-L- cysteine sulfoxides in several cultivars of Indonesian shallots have been studied by Ariyanti et al. (2018). In addition, Abdelrahman et al. (2020) also studied the amino acid composition of several Indonesian shallots that were