The Sea Cucumber Vacuum Cooking Technology And Product Development

As a precious seafood，the sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) has highedible value and nutritional value. Especially in China, it has a growing demand. Seacucumber aquaculture has increased year by year and the production value of the seacucumber products has rapidly increased. With the improvement of people’sconsumption level，the quality of sea cucumbers are increasing. Not only the nutritionbut also the sensory quality has to meet the higher requirement. However, due to thelow levels of sea cucumber processing technology, the sea cucumber products cannotmeet the requirements currently. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is that explore anew kind of sea cucumber processing technology, the technology can maximizeretention sea cucumber nutrients and brings better sensory experience to people. Thisthesis explores the characteristics of the thermal processing of sea cucumber in thevacuum cooking conditions, optimizes the processing method and parameters ofvacuum cooking rewatering sea cucumber products, and further proved its advantagesin nutrition. In addition, it explores the sea cucumber freshness evaluation, to providea basis for product quality control. The main contents and results are as thefollowings:1. The changes and the freshness evaluation of sea cucumber body wall at4℃.The sensory quality evaluation, AEC values and ATP%of sea cucumber body wallhave a good correlation in four days of storage at4±1℃. The AEC values and ATP%and sensory quality evaluation changes can be used as short-term storage qualityassessment index of sea cucumber body wall at4±1℃. TVB-N values reflect thefreshness of the sea cucumber body wall to a certain extent: the“good quality” and“acceptable” limit value is10mg/100g,15mg/100g. TVB-N limit value is lowercompared with other aquatic. The changes range of pH values and K values is too tinyto indicate the freshness. 2．To study the thermal processing characteristics of the sea cucumber vacuumcooking conditions. The quality, volume, density, texture properties andmicrostructure changes of sea cucumber body wall have a significant difference,under the different pressures and temperatures. The vacuum cooking heat treatmentcan reduce the loss of quality of sea cucumber body wall during the heated process,and enhance and improve the textural properties, especially the chewiness andspringiness. The research provides a new heat treatment method for the sea cucumberprocessing.3．The research on optimization of the vacuum cooking rewatering sea cucumberprocessing method and the comparison of product characteristics. Contrast the qualityof rewatering sea cucumber body wall, under the different temperatures, differentvacuum level, different heat treatment time and different cooling methods. The resultsshowed that the optimal condition is that：heating temperature is75℃，vacuum degreeis-0.04MPa, heating time is3h and decompression cooling method.The research of comparison of product characteristics indicates that the vacuumcooking rewatering sea cucumber has a great advantage on retention of nutrients,texture properties, and sensory quality to other rewatering sea cucumber products,further confirms the sea cucumber vacuum cooking method can improve the nutrientretention and better the taste of sea cucumber products.