Qualitative Evaluation of Fish Fingers Prepared from Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and Pangasius (Pangasius pangasius) Stored at -18±2°C
Background: The fish being highly perishable food item consumed in all strata of people. The production of freshwater fish is on the rise and need to be processed in a variety of forms to make them available for people. Nowadays, numbers of value added fish products are available in the market for consumption to achieve health beneficial effect and to cope up with malnutrition. However, consumers are unaware of the quality of the products available in the market. Therefore, the present work was undertaken to evaluate the quality of fish fingers produced from tilapia and pangasius during storage at -18±2°C. Methods: The fresh tilapia and pangasius were purchased from local market to prepare fillets. The fingers were prepared from tilapia and pangasius fillets and par fried at 180°C for 30 seconds. The fried fingers were cooled at once at room temperature and stored in deep freeze at -18±2°C for shelf-life study during November 2019 to March 2021. Result: The results indicated that the fish fingers prepared from tilapia could be stored for 33 days and pangasius fingers had a shelf-life of only 27 days. All biochemical parameters viz. pH, TVB-N, PV, FFA and TBA were found increasing as the storage study progresses. The sensory score of the fish fingers produced from both the fishes were got drastically reduced at the end of deep freeze storage at -18±2°C. Overall study indicated that tilapia and pangasius fish can be successfully utilized for the preparation of various value added fish product such as fish fingers and would have sufficient shelf life at deep freeze storage at -18±2°C.