Quality Improvement of Tilapia Fish Nuggets by Addition of Legume Flour as Extenders

Fish mince based convenient products have become much popular among consumers. Therefore, incorporating fish mince with non-meat protein becomes an important production approach for reducing the cost and improving the nutritional, physical and sensory properties of the product. Hence the present study was focused on producing a Tilapia fish nugget with different legume flour i.e. lentil, chickpea and cowpea as an extender and masking the unpleasant sensory attributes of Tilapia fish due to its muddy flavor. Fish nuggets were prepared by using different composition of Tilapia fish mince (85, 75, 70, 65%), legume flour extender (0, 10, 15, 20%) and spice mixture (15%). Fish nuggets that were prepared by replacing 15% of Tilapia fish mince with legume flour were selected as the best out of all types of extenders. Accordingly, the prepared fish nuggets were kept in frozen storage (-180C) and evaluated for proximate composition, cooking yield, shrinkage percentage, moisture retention, water holding capacity, pH, total plate count, free fatty acid value, peroxide value and total volatile based nitrogen for 3 months period. Results showed that the incorporation of legume flour significantly increased the protein content (20.28%) of nuggets compared to the control sample without legume flour (14.72%). Cowpea flour added fish nuggets revealed the highest cooking yield (78.89%), high moisture retention ability (34.15%), low diameter shrinkage (6.42%), good textural properties and same quality was observed even after 3 months of storage at -180C without addition of preservatives.