Texture, Oil Adsorption and Safety of the European Style Croquettes Manufactured at Industrial Scale

Abstract

An European style croquette is like a small breaded patty, but, in its manufacturing, the ingredients (all minced) meat, fish and vegetables are boiled along with wheat flour and milk (or milk powder and water), and then cooled to form a consistent and tied dough. When manufacturing is made at industrial scale, this dough is cooled with cold air, and mechanically extruded, divided and formed, for achieving the required shape and size of the croquettes. Then, in the same manufacturing line, they are coated first by a batter, and secondly with breadcrumbs, and conveyed to the continuous freezer to be packaged later as precooked frozen croquettes, or they are directly conveyed to packaging and cooling for obtaining precooked refrigerated croquettes. Before consumption, at the foodservice sector (for example the kitchen of the restaurant or canteen), or at the home kitchen, this precooked meal is generally deep-fried to create a golden and crunchy outer crust. It is one of the most widespread prepared dishes of the world cuisine and has a continued growth in consumption as a delicacy and as a fast food. However, there is insufficient research devoted specifically to the study of technology and engineering aspects of interest for manufacturing European style croquettes at industrial scale. In addition, the corresponding literature is very scattered when considering the study of croquettes quality, oil absorption during frying, and safety. Therefore, this paper makes a review of the literature analyzing the different technological factors that determine the texture, quality and safety of the croquettes manufactured at industrial scale.

Stability of Bioactive Compounds in Olive-Pomace Oil at Frying Temperature and Incorporation into Fried Foods

“…The high extent of oil exchange in prefried French fries is due to the fact that all lipids in these products come from the oil used for prefrying, which is mainly located on the surface and, thus, it is readily released into the frying oil [ 44 ]. Chicken nuggets were also prefried products, but their coverage with batter normally diminishes the lipid exchange with the frying oil, as it also occurs with bread coverage [ 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ].…”

Sensorial Evaluation of Fish Croquettes Produced from Different Seafood

“…Fried fish croquettes have a crisp texture on the outside and a soft texture on the inside, similar to other battered and fried foods. This characteristic texture is formed with a combination of high temperature, oil uptake and water loss due to deep-frying (Soto-Jover et al, 2016). In this research, the texture characteristics of all fish groups were liked by the panelists and the highest texture value was specified in sardine croquettes as 8.33±0.41.…”

La trucha (Oncorhynchus mykiss): Potenciales productos alimenticios derivados del principal recurso acuícola en regiones altoandinas

“…Las croquetas son productos semielaborados. Su elaboración consiste en la mezcla de ingredientes (todos picados) como pescado, carne y vegetales, los cuales luego son hervidos junto con harina de trigo, leche en polvo y agua, luego la mezcla es enfriada para formar una masa homogénea y consistente, con la cual se forman las croquetas (Soto-Jover et al, 2016). Çankırılıgil y Berik (2017) desarrollaron croquetas de trucha (CRT) utilizando como ingredientes: 9,5 % harina de trigo, 9,5 % pan rallado, 1,76 % coco, 0,99 % sal, 0,67 % almidón de trigo, 0,28 % pimienta negra, 0,23 % pimienta blanca, 0,13 % cilantro, 0,43 % cebolla en polvo y 0,2 % ajo en polvo.…”