Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Meat Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/meatsci Effect of salting and ripening on the physicochemical and sensory quality of goat and sheep cured legs Alfredo Teixeira a,c,⁎ , Aline Fernandes c , Etelvina Pereira c , Aristides Manuel c , Sandra Rodrigues b,c a Veterinary and Animal Research Centre (CECAV), Portugal b Mountain Research Centre (CIMO), Portugal c Escola Superior Agrária/Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Sheep Goat Cured legs Chemical composition Fatty acids profile ABSTRACT Physicochemical and sensory characteristics of sheep and goat cured legs were evaluated. The pH values (5.7–5.8) and aw (0.87 and 0.83) found to be adequate to control meat deterioration, promoting safety and stability to shelf life of products with respect to microbial growth. The high protein (46.2 and 38.4%) and low fat (5.3 and 8.7%) percentages of the goat and sheep cured legs were the main evidence of the effect of salting and ripening processes. A low cholesterol content of 4.5% is particularly evident in sheep cured legs. Curing process produced a slight increase in the P/S ratio 0.23 and 0.17 for goat and sheep cured legs, respectively. TBARS values are much lower than the value of 2 mg of MDA/Kg which is the upper limit of rancidity. Physico-chemical and sensory characteristics indicate that producing cured goat and sheep legs from cull animals can be an interesting way of adding value to animals with very low commercial prices. 1. Introduction Goats and sheep are one of the most important sources of meat produced and one of the most popular consumed in world. About 70% of world's population consumes sheep and goat meat as part of their regular diet and in several countries are the main products of tradi- tional dishes. Also in countries which are not considered as goat or sheep consumers more and more goat and sheep meat is being con- sumed and consequently the different agents involved in meat industry become more interested in the control of production in terms of quality and food safety. The most consumed are cabrito from goats and cordeiro from sheep (meat from milk fed animals with no > 3 months age and 5 to 8 kg carcass weight) or chivo and lamb, from goats and sheep re- spectively (animals with 6 to 9 months age with > 11 kg carcass weight). Most of them are commercialized as brands under Protected Origin Designation (PDO) or Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). Meat from older animals particularly the culled ones are not so popular but are also consumed in several countries as processed meats. This meat from animals with very low commercial value is more appro- priated to process and cure with salts as some of popular products as Cecina in Spain (Hierro, de la Hoz, & Ordoñez, 2004), or Brazilian Charqui (Madruga & Bressan, 2011) ore in Italy violin di capra (Fratianni, Sada, Orlando, & Nazzaro, 2008). Also with the goal to added value to depreciated meats several authors have recently studied sheep and goat processed products as Polpara, Sornprasitt, and Wattanachant (2008) studying quality characteristics of raw and canned goat meat during storage in water, brine, oil and Thay curry; Das, Anjaneyulu, Thomas, and Kondaiah (2009) studying the effect of different fats on the quality of goat meat patties; Teixeira, Pereira, and Rodrigues (2011) evaluating the effect of salting, air-drying and aging in a new goat meat product “manta”; Oliveira et al. (2014) analyzing the quality of ewe and goat meat cured products; Leite et al. (2015) and Paulos et al. (2015) studying the properties of sheep and goat meat sausages and Tolentino, Estevinho, Pascoal, Rodrigues, and Teixeira (2016) evaluating the microbiological and sensory quality of new meat cured products obtained from sheep and goat meat of culled animals. In this context, a project among a research center (Carcass and Meat Quality and Technology Laboratory of Agriculture Scholl of Polytechnic Institute of Bragança), two breeder associations (ANCRAS – National Breed Producers Association of Serrana Goat and ACOB – National Breed Producers Association of Bragançana Sheep) and a meat manu- facturing industry and Bísaro breed producer (Bísaro Salsicharia Tra- dicional) was developed to add value to animals with very low com- mercial value and consumer acceptability, processing meat that cannot be commercialized as PDO or IGP products. The aim of this work was to describe the physicochemical and sensory characteristics sheep and goat cured legs. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2017.08.002 Received 4 July 2017; Received in revised form 31 July 2017; Accepted 3 August 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Veterinary and Animal Research Centre (CECAV), Portugal. E-mail address: teixeira@ipb.pt (A. Teixeira). Meat Science 134 (2017) 163–169 Available online 04 August 2017 0309-1740/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK