• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.401-408
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• 1985

In order to develop new types of product which can offer a sanitary and preservative duality, and convenience to consumers in marketing and cooking particularly in urban area, two processing methods of ready-to-cook food materials with dark fleshed fishes like sardine and mackerel were investigated. A method applied, in this work, is processing of ready-to-cook sardine meat "surimi" in which sardine meat is treated with alkaline solution to stabilize myofibrillar proteins, washed thoroughly with water to remove soluble components, and added with a proper amount of polyphosphate and sorbitol to enforce the functional property of meat such as water holding capasity, elasticity, and gel strength. The textural properties of fish meat paste made from the "surimi" meat were greatly dependent upon the stability of myofibrillar proteins and the elimination of water soluble components. The salt soluble proteins of sardine meat were so unstable in post-mortem stage that the gel forming ability was lost within 3 days at $5^{\circ}C$ storage and 2 to 3 weeks even at $-20^{\circ}C$ although the freshness was well kept for a week at $5^{\circ}C$ and several months of storage at $-20^{\circ}C$. A proper way of treatment to keep the proteins stable was that fish meat must be washed with $0.4\%$ sodium bicarbonate solution followed by 3 to 4 times washing with water. This resulted in removal of $80\%$ water soluble proteins and 50 to $60\%$ lipids. The addition of polyphosphate and sorbitol affected the stability of proteins during the storage of "surimi" meat. When phosphate and sorbitol were added in the ratio of $0.3\%:\;0.3\%,\;0.6\%:\;3\%,\;0.6\%:\;6\%,\;0:\,0.3\%\;and\;0.3\%:\;0$, the gel forming ability terminated in 35 days, 21 days, 14 days, 14 days, and 14 days of storage at $-30^{\circ}C$, respectively, while that of the control was 7 days. And it was also noteworthy that at least 8.0 mg/g of salt soluble protein nitrogen content was required for gel formation.