The effect of cooking methods on yield and acceptability of battered spent fowls

Abstract

Sixteen culled layer fowls were slaughtered, dressed and dismembered into parts after a four week period of frozen storage. The breast, thigh and drumsticks were subjected to either of the following prefrying treatments: Microwave, steaming and pressurizing. The treated and the control chicken parts were battered and dusted with baking flour before they were deep fat fried for 14 minutes. The breast portions steamed and pressurized gave the highest cooked yield and least cooking loss while microwave precooked parts had the least final product yield as well as the highest cooking loss. The shear force values were least for pressurized and steamed samples and highest for the control and microwave samples. The sensory scores for juiciness and tenderness were best for steamed samples followed by pressurized parts.

Keywords: Cooking, yield, acceptability, spent-fowls.