Process development and properties of a cook-in-bag product from lamb shoulder meat

The process of producing "heat and eat" lamb meat in mushroom gravy and curry sauce was developed using underutilized shoulder as raw material. Equal amounts of lamb chunks and gravy or sauce was steam cooked in high heat resistant bags under a sous vide-like condition and subsequently chilled following USDA protocol. Subjective and objective eating qualities, and physical and chemical properties were determined.; In study one, lean lamb shoulder (6% fat or lower) samples cooked in mushroom gravy at 90°C for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 h were more tender than a widely acceptable commercial beef tip in mushroom gravy product or lamb product cooked at 85°C for 2 h. Cooking samples at 90°C for 2, 3, 4 and 5 h decreased objectionable sheep meat aroma and taste in products. Mouth fat-coating intensity, meat color, pH, TBARS and meat composition were not affected by these cooking temperature/time combinations. Thermal processing to 90°C endpoint for 2 h was established as our cooking protocol.; In the second study, treatment samples using three different fat content chunks as raw materials were untrimmed, coarsely trimmed and closely trimmed, all non-pressed (21.54%, 13.73% and 5.62% fat respectively). An additional warming/pressing method was applied to untrimmed and coarsely trimmed lamb to produce two more meat raw materials: pressed untrimmed (24.67% fat) and pressed coarsely trimmed (14.21% fat) meat respectively. When cooked in curry sauce at 90°C internally for 2 h, all had satisfying palatability up to 120 days at 4°C storage. Non-pressed untrimmed product varied in tenderness among pieces. Pressed untrimmed sample developed the strongest sheep meat taste at D 120. The additional heating/pressing process resulted in smaller pieces of drier, less tender and lighter colored meat, and also caused higher initial TBARS and fat percent meat chunks. Non-pressed coarsely trimmed chunks prepared by hand trimming all subcutaneous fat and some seam fat was the best raw meat material in terms of final product qualities, time and labor cost.