Influence of water-based and contact heating preparation methods on potato mechanical properties, mastication, and sensory perception

Abstract

Water-based (boiling and steaming) and contact heating (grilling at low and high temperature) methods deployed at 15, 30, and 45 min were investigated concerning their influence on potato's mechanical properties, mastication, and dynamic sensory perception. Instrumental color difference (ΔE) and triangle test results were explicated together. They revealed negligible ΔE (from one to nine) for grilled potatoes, compared to the boiling and steaming treatments (where ΔE ranged up to 24), indicating that appearance was not the only parameter influencing products’ distinguishing. Further investigations revealed that boiling and steaming were capable of increasing samples' mass up to 4% while grilling decreased by 46%. High and low temperature grilling treatments had the strongest effect on mass difference (ηp2 = 0.949 and 0.84, respectively), while 45′ and 30’ preparation times had similar effects (ηp2 = 0.981 and ηp2 = 0.959). Water-based methods had a stronger effect on selected mechanical properties (e.g., rupture stress, toughness, and deformability modulus). Grilling increased values of the mentioned mechanical parameters, especially considering the higher temperature. On the contrary, water-based methods decreased them with the preparation prolongation. The same trend was also followed by some mastication parameters (number of chews, consumption time, chewing rate). Estimated correlation coefficients revealed that mass difference had the greatest predictive power considering mastication, followed by toughness and rupture stress.