Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Soup – sauce – gravy or base
Patent
1991-01-04
1993-01-12
Weinstein, Steven
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Soup, sauce, gravy or base
426234, 426661, A23L 140
Patent
active
051788950
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a food product and in particular to a frozen, cream-style, starch-containing product which is consumable after microwave preparation without stirring. The invention has particular utility in the production and preparation of a hot drinkable cream-style soup, but can also extend to sweetened dessert products such as custards and milk shakes and to savoury products such as sauces and gravies.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect of the invention a frozen food product comprises an aqueous phase substantially uniformly dispersing a starch system and an oleaginous system, the aqueous phase containing some free water substantially uniformly dispersed throughout the product as a result of freezing point depression of the aqueous phase through the presence in the product of at least one dissolved material acting as freezing point depressant, the oleaginous system including at least one fat in the form of particles of sizes less than 10 microns, and the starch system comprising at least one starch in a partially gelatinised state, at least one humectant being present in the product to act as a water-activity depressant for the starch system.
Suitably the starch(es) in the starch system has/have a gelatinisation temperature between 70.degree. and 75.degree. C. Conveniently the starch(es) constitute(s) from some 2% w/w to 5% w/w of the product. The starch(es) require(s) to be freeze/thaw stable and is/are preferably also acid stable.
Desirably the particles of fat in the oleaginous system have a size of less than 2 microns and conveniently are spray dried on a water activity reducing carrier (e.g. maltodextrin).
Conveniently the product is frozen in volumes of between 100 and 200 ml in at least substantially microwave transparent drinking vessels. Suitably the vessels can be removed from a microwave oven after thawing and heating the product and can be supported with a near-boiling aqueous phase within the vessel in a thermally unprotected hand.
In a preferred form, the product is a volume of 150 ml to 170 ml of frozen cream-style soup which can be transformed into a hot drinkable product of moderate viscosity directly from the frozen state (e.g. at -18.degree. C.) with no stirring after approximately 3 minutes in a microwave oven (e.g. operating at some 2450 megahertz and 600 watts) and comprises (a) a partially gelatinised starch system based on at least one acid stable, freeze/thaw stable, modified waxy maize starch having a gelatinisation temperature at around 75.degree. C., (b) an oleaginous system comprising droplets of less than 10 microns in diameter of hydrogenated vegetable oil, (c) an aqueous phase dispersing the two systems (a) and (b) substantially homogeneously, the aqueous phase including ice particles dispersed in free water and (d) maltodextrin dissolved in the free water to create a substantially continuous carrier phase for systems (a) and (b).
According to a further aspect of this invention, a process for manufacturing the precursor of a recently-thawed drinkable, starch-thickened, cream-style food product, heated from a frozen state without stirring in a microwave oven, comprises forming a homogeneous mixture of product flavouring components, spray dried creaming ingredient based on vegetable oil, granules of at least one acid stable, freeze/thaw stable starch ano maltodextrin in water, heating the mixture to a temperature at which swelling of the starch granules will commence for a time to produce between say 70% and 80% of the total swelling potential of the starch granules, dispensing the mixture into individual containers intended to contain the product while heated in a microwave oven and while subsequently consumed, and freezing the containers and dispensed mixture to a temperature of between -15.degree. and -20.degree. C.
The extent to which the starch granules are swollen prior to freezing will be determined on the basis of the post-freezing microwave heating cycle to which the product will be subjected prior to consumption
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Maltrin, The functional edge, brochure, p. 15.
Aberle Jean L.
Campbell Frozen Foods Limited
Weinstein Steven
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