Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Surface coated – fluid encapsulated – laminated solid... – Isolated whole seed – bean or nut – or material derived therefrom
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-30
2001-05-01
Bhat, Nina (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Surface coated, fluid encapsulated, laminated solid...
Isolated whole seed, bean or nut, or material derived therefrom
C426S102000, C426S552000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06224921
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
Comestibles such as meat, fish, poultry and vegetables are commonly batter-coated and then cooked by pan frying or deep fat frying. Batters enhance food sensory quality, but they also absorb oil during frying. The oil uptake in fried coating materials has become a concern, as excessive oil consumption is known to be a causative factor in obesity and many other health problems. In reaction to this awareness, pressure has increased from governmental and consumer groups to reduce the amount of oil and fat in foods.
The present invention relates to the development of rice-based frying batters which significantly reduce oil uptake during the frying process, while retaining desirable organoleptic properties.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Interactions during frying are believed to play an important role in determining the degree of batter oil uptake. Reduction of oil absorption in batters has been previously achieved through various means. Mechanical removal of excess oil has resulted in only minor reductions of fat. Solvent extraction has lacked commercial feasibility and public acceptance due to the potential for ingestion of residual chemicals. Use of barrier materials such as hydrated hydroxypropyl methylcellulose in frying compositions has been attempted by Meyers et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,537). This results in the formation of a gum which may be applied independently or as a mixture with a batter. The result is the creation of an oil barrier which decreases oil absorption and increases the level of water retention in the food product being fried. Other film-forming agents have also been reported to effect reduction in the oil absorption of batters upon frying. Olsen et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,511,583) teach the utility of gelatin and certain starches in forming films that prevents oil absorption of the finished breading product upon frying.
Numerous starch products have been used for inclusion into the batter which are claimed to reduce the extra oil absorption from the coating material. The term starch is used herein to include various modified starches such as dextrins, oxidized starch, and other starch derivatives. Generally, however, the addition of these starch products to traditional wheat flour based batters result in modest, if any reductions in oil absorption, e.g., up to 3% to 5% reductions in the oil absorbed. Apparently, even though these starches themselves may have good film-forming and oil-resisting properties, their presence is too little (normally less than 10% of the batter) to effect any significant reduction in the total oil absorption. Rarely are they used at ratios higher than 15%, especially for tempura types of batters, because good film-forming materials or thickeners when used as the main body of the batter result in low coating pickup and poor textural quality when fried.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It has now been discovered that organoleptically acceptable rice based batters with the property of reduced oil uptake upon frying may be produced through the inclusion in the batter mix of a cold water swelling rice based starch product selected from the group consisting of pregelatinized rice flour, phosphorylated rice starch, and pregelatinized acetylated rice starch. When used in the compositional proportions of the presently taught invention, the present batter mixes produce products with significantly reduced oil content as compared to their wheat based counterparts.
In accordance with the present discovery, it is an object to provide novel batter compositions which, in addition to desirable coating and frying properties of traditional batters, also have the characteristics of substantially reducing the batter oil uptake during frying.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become readily apparent from the ensuing description.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is based in part upon the insight of the inventors that the property of low oil uptake upon frying may be acquired from the cereal flour component of the batter composition rather than from the inclusion of oil reducing additives. Instead of relying upon these oil-reducing additives, strongly oil-resisting rice-based flours are chosen as the main body of the batter base.
Because these batter-base materials lack functional properties desirable for batters, additives such as cold water swelling rice based starch products selected from the group consisting of pregelatinized rice flour, phosphorylated rice starch, and pregelatinized acetylated rice starch are used to enhance the viscosity of the batter slurry and, subsequently, the textural and sensory quality of the fried batter. Batter base materials are chosen for their strong oil-resisting characteristics. Because of this, optimal compositions for achieving minimal oil absorption are created by maximizing the main body batter base and minimizing batter additives. This approach has particular economic benefit because additives are normally significant cost components of the batter. The batter compositions of the present invention thus contain strongly oil-resisting materials as the main body and small amounts of additives providing viscosity and pasting properties suitable for food-coating and the development of desirable textural and organoleptic properties upon frying.
The compositions and methods of the present invention are to be practiced, with or without breading, with comestibles which are to be subsequently fried or par-fried. Appropriate comestibles include such categories as meat, fish, poultry and vegetables. While the choice of particular commodity, as well as its form, would be a matter of simple alternative to the practicing artisan, an exemplary and non-exhaustive list of usable materials is seen to include pork cutlets, beef cutlets, chicken drumsticks, chicken cutlets, shrimp, fish patties, and vegetable strips, e.g., onion, potato, carrot, sweet potato, pepper and okra.
Wheat flours, while commonly used as the main body of batter bases, have relatively high oil absorbing capacities. This is postulated to be due in part to their being rich in gluten, a protein with great affinity for oil. Rice flours, while typically possessing a protein content of about 6-9%, are gluten free and have been found to possess superior oil resisting properties. Particularly suitable as batter bases for the instant invention are flours from long grain rice which have a starch content at about 87-95% and an amylose/amylopectin ratio ranging from about 18:82 to about 22:78, preferably about 20:80. These rice flours are highly nutritious, hypoallergenic, and particularly safe for human consumption.
While long grain rice flours have superior properties with regard to reduced oil adsorption upon frying, they lack desirable characteristics, such as thickening and pasting properties, that are of great functional importance to batters. In the present invention these shortcomings are overcome by the inclusion of additives that are able to thicken and swell the rice based batter but not appreciably interfere with the batter's property of low oil absorption. In the present invention it has been discovered that additives particularly suitable in maintaining the low oil absorption capacity of rice based batters are found to be cold water swelling rice based starch products selected from the group consisting of pregelatinized rice flour, phosphorylated rice starch, and pregelatinized acetylated rice starch.
Pregelatinization of starch is a process of precooking starch to produce materials that hydrate and swell in cold water. Products are called pregelatinized starches or “pregels” when heated beyond the pasting temperature of the flour. Drum drying is the most common method of preparation, but spray drying and extrusion cooking are alternative methods. Processing conditions such as water content, time, and temperature can be varied to produce different products. We have used both commercial drum-dried and lab-prepared extrusion-cooked pregelatinized products. Both type
Daigle Kim W.
Shih Frederick F.
Bhat Nina
Fado John D.
Lipovsky Joseph A.
Silverstein M. Howard
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of
LandOfFree
Rice flour based low oil uptake frying batters does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Rice flour based low oil uptake frying batters, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Rice flour based low oil uptake frying batters will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2493007