www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF ACETES BALL IN CURRY PROCESSED AT 121.2 0 C S. M. SHAIKH, V. R. JOSHI, R. PAI, A. U. PAGARKAR, J. M. KOLI, S. T. SHARANGDHAR & G. N. KULKARNI College of Fisheries, Shirgaon, Dr. B. S. Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli, Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India ABSTRACT Quality of acetes balls in curry was improved by studying the effects of setting, levels of moisture, filling media, levels of transglutaminase enzyme and types of starch. This improvement in the quality was assessed by biochemical changes viz. pH and moisture, physical changes viz. gel strength and expressible water percentage and organoleptic evaluation were studied. In the present experiment, effect of filling media showed an improvement in texture and gel strength. Among the effect of filling media, plain acetes balls without curry (PABWOC) showed superior texture followed by plain acetes balls with curry (PABWC), spice mixture acetes balls without curry (SABWOC) and spice mixture acetes balls with curry (SABWC). KEYWORDS: Acetes Balls, Setting, Transglutaminase Enzyme, Types of Starch & Level of Moisture and Filling Media Received: Mar 23 2017; Accepted: Apr 10, 2017; Published: Apr 17, 2017; Paper Id.: IJASRJUN20171 INTRODUCTION In India, most of the shrimp of the genus Acetes, popularly known as Jawala is consumed by local people regularly either in fresh or dried form in the preparation of day-to-day food dish. Dried acetes is available year round in the market; however, functional properties of protein in fresh acetes are lost after it is dried. Fresh meat of acetes can be used for the preparation of acetes mince, thereby retaining their desired functional properties. In recent years, there is a great demand for seafood and seafood based products, especially value-added products in the Ready-to-eat 'convenience' form. Present trends in the marketing reflect a rapidly growing demand for such processed foods that are more convenient to handle, store and prepare. Emulsion type fish paste products are traditional products of Japan and these products possess high gel strength, white colour and bland taste characteristics which are preferred by Japanese consumers. In the similar, lines different emulsion type of products have been developed from fresh acetes mince suitable to Indian palate such as acetes sausage (Nagothkar, 2013), acetes sandwich (Sonavane, 2014), acetes chikuwa, acetes steamed wada, acetes ball in curry and other products (Joshi, 2014). These products are generally consumed immediately after preparation and can also be stored for short term at 0 to 2 0 C or for long term storage, these are frozen and held at -20 0 C. For storage at room temperature, these products have to be processed at 121.2 0 C in retort pouch as reported by Shaikh et al. (2017) who concluded that processing of acetes balls in curry at 121.2 0 C for 42 min was necessary to achieve better sensory quality and this trend was reflected by changes in the physical and biochemical parameters. However, the texture and folding test grades of acetes balls in curry subjected to thermal processing were lower than the steamed acetes balls (later mixed with curry). So far, no work has been carried out on the improvement of texture of acetes balls subjected to thermal processing. Therefore, present study was undertaken to improve the texture of acetes ball in curry subjected to thermal processing, by adopting various methods. Original Article International Journal of Agricultural Science and Research (IJASR) ISSN(P): 2250-0057; ISSN(E): 2321-0087 Vol. 7, Issue 3, Jun 2017, 1-8 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.