Effect of pre-drying on kinetics of moisture loss and oil uptake during deep fat frying of chickpea flour-based snack food

Mass transfer kinetics of moisture outflow and oil uptake during deep fat frying of snack food prepared from a blend of chickpea flour and modified starch have been investigated. The effect of frying temperature and pre-fry drying has also been studied. The results indicated that an increase in the temperature of frying (150-200degreesC) caused an increase in mass transfer coefficient for moisture (0.045-0.096 s(-1)) as well as for oil (0.056-0.082 s(-1)). Pre-fry drying also had a significant effect on the deep fat frying. As the pre-fry drying time was increased (0-90 min) before frying at 175degreesC, it resulted in a decrease in kinetic coefficient for moisture transfer (0.056-0.039 s(-1)) as well as in kinetic coefficient for oil transfer (0.063-0.035 s(-1)). Based on the kinetics and sensory data, the optimum pre-fry drying and frying times were 40 min and 45 s, respectively, which resulted in 54% reduction in the oil content of the fried product, without compromising on the sensory quality characteristics. (C) 2003 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.