Utilization of fish flour in canned concentrated seasoning stock for Thai foods preparation

Norvel fish flour is unique as a food source providing good protein quality, as well as minerals and vitamins. It contained high contents of protein, calcium and phosphorus by 65.91 gm/100 gm, 2,576 mg/100 gm and 1,531 mg/100 gm, respectively. It was studied in replacing fresh fish in preparing five canned concentrated seasoning stocks for Thai food preparation which were Nam Ya Pla (Fish currie sauce), Kaeng Som (Spicy sour mixed vegetable), Kaeng Tai Pla (Southern hot curry), Kaeng Kua Fag (Red curry) and Kaeng Tae Po (Red curry). The suitable amount of fish flour incorporating in most dishes except for Nam Ya Pla (18 percent), were 15 percent of uncooked chilli paste. In the chemical compositions study of canned products, it revealed that the products provided protein, fat and energy contents from 4.32-6.00, 1.41-13.85 and 40.40-185.97 Kcal respectively. The products with the highest protein content were Kaeng Tai Pla, Kaeng Kua Fag and Nam Ya Pla,l Kaeng Som had the lowest fat content whereas the highest was found in Kaeng Tae Po. Calcium content in the products ranged from 126.50-136.36 mg/100 g which was 1.2-1.6 times higher than phosphorus content. Chemical composition comparison of fish flour incorporated dishes to the standard recipes, the results showed that fish flour products provided protein contents in the range of 3.13-5.49 gm/100 gm, while there was contained from 2.88-3.74 gm/100 gm in standard recipes. Morever, the higher calcium content in Kaeng Tae Po, Nam Ya Pla and Kaeng Som were 2.5, 1.9 and 1.7 times greater than their standard formulae. For shelf life study, peroxide value (POV) of all products rapidly increased after six month storage and the highest value at nine month ranged from 63.35-102.24 meq O2/kg sample. Sensory evaluation showed that the acceptability score at 12 month in most of the products were significantly lower (P LT 0.05) than at zero time but the score was still in the range of 5.81-6.85. The acceptability scores were decreased when the shelf life was increased. In point of view of consummer acceptability, it was observed that more than 45.3, 46.0 and 45.9 percent of the respondents liked the color, odor and taste of the products, respectively. It was more than 60 percent of the respondents accepted while less than 12 percent did not accept the products.