Studies on suitability of cultivar, frying medium and packaging for potato chips

Studies were conducted with the four commercially grown potato cultivars namely 'Kufri Jawahar', 'K. Jyoti', 'K. Badshah' and 'K. Chandramukhi' and six frying media namely refined cottonseed oil, refined groundnut oil, extra refined sunflower oil, refined soybean oil, palm oil and Dalda (Vanaspati) to find out their suitability for potato chip manufacture. Physico-chemical characteristics including total solids, total soluble solids, reducing sugars and specific gravity of potato cultivars and moisture content, oil uptake, peroxide value, free fatty acids, colour and sensory quality of chips were studied. Shelf-life studies were conducted in three different packagings i.e. polythene, laminated paper and aluminium foil bags under ambient conditions at temperature 14°-34 °C and relative humidity 45-77%. 'K. Jawahar' had the most desirable quality characteristics and produced the best quality chips among the cultivars used. The highest consumer preference for potato chip frying medium was for cottonseed oil followed by sunflower oil. Packaging in aluminium foil was found to be the most suitable with minimum increase in peroxide value and free fatty acid content and maximum retention of sensory scores during storage. Potato chips fried in sunflower oil and packed in aluminium foil bags stored under ambient conditions retained better quality than those fried in cottonseed oil and had a shelf-life of 90 days and was highly acceptable.