Studies on Physico-chemical Properties of Chicken Meat Cooked in Electric Oven Combined with Superheated Steam

This study was carried out to observe the effect of superheated steam combined with oven heating on the physico-chemical and sensory properties of chicken meat. Specially, chicken breasts and thighs were heated for 40 min in various heating formulations such as oven heating, superheated steam heating or a combination of two kinds of heating. In the physical properties measurement, the shear force was increased as superheated steam heating time and chicken thighs were higher than chicken breasts in all treatments (p<0.05). The highest level of water holding capacity was solely superheated steam treated chicken for 40 min (p<0.05). The L* value was decreased but a* value or b* value were increased after cooking. Chicken breast exhibited a higher colour value than chicken thigh. Superheated heating was effective to reduce heating loss as 22.64% (p<0.05). However, pH was not different depending on the heating formulation or part of the chicken meat (p>0.05). In the sensory test, the combination of 10 min oven heating and 30 min superheated steam heating was effective to create a good flavour of chicken meat. In this study, an optimum formulation was developed which was a combination of 10 min oven heating and 30 min superheated steam heating. It was more effective to improve the quality of chicken meat than the single heat treatment of chicken meat.