Palitos de mandioca desidratados osmoticamente com diferentes condimentos.

Abstract

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is cultivated in ali Brazilian states, because of its easy adaptation. However, sweet cassava is less and less frequent, natura" form, in large cities and supermarkets, due to its fast postharvest deterioration. It is observed, today, a diversification of offered products, such as minimally processed, pre-cooked, frozen, packaged cooked in vácuo, "chips" cassava, etc. Before mis context, this work aimed to investigate the elaboration of cassava "sticks", subjected to osmotic dehydration in solution of saccharose (30%) plus sodium chloride (3%) spiced with bacon, beef jerky and herbs, with temperatures of 45, 50 and 55°C for 40 minutes; the determination of kinetics of osmotic dehydration according to Cavalcanti Mata's equations, Page and Logarithms; the cassava sticks texture dehydrated and fried; and the evaluation of the sensorial aspect of the fried cassava sticks. Cassava sticks dehydration kinetics, in osmotic solution, suffers a strong influence of the solution temperature, culminating in the decrease of mass transfer with the increase of temperature. The three proposed equations were adjusted satisfactorily to the experimental data of cassava sticks osmotic dehydration in temperatures of 45, 50 and 55 °C, with coefficients of determination higher than 99%. The texture tests pointed out that the greater resistance to the cut was offered by the sample in natura, and that the osmotic dehydration contributed for reducing the resistance in ali the treatments. It was also found that the use of different spice did not cause considerable difference between the treatments after the osmotic dehydration. Ali the products elaborated in this research (cassava sticks dehydrated osmotically in saccharose solution (30%) and sodium chloride (3%), spiced, respectively, with bacon, beef jerky and herbs) were well accepted by the evaluators, being the beef jerky the one that had the greater preference in ali sensorial proprieties.