Effect of blanching pre-treatment and drying methods on quality of radish leaf powder Choudhary Kanupriya1, Alam M S2,*, Gupta S K2, Kumar Satish2 1Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal-462038, Madhya Pradesh 2Department of Processing and Food Engineering, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141004, Punjab *Corresponding author: ms_alam@rediffmail.com
Online published on 16 September, 2020. Abstract Effects of different blanching pre-treatment and drying methods on quality of radish leaves were investigated. Radish leaves were subjected to various blanching pre-treatments i.e. citric acid blanching (CB), potassium metabisulphite dipping (KMS) and hot water blanching (HB). A control sample (untreated, UT) was kept for comparing with treated sample. Pre-treated samples were dried using different drying methods i.e. convective tray drying (55°C, 65°C and 75°C), sun drying and solar drying. The dried samples were evaluated for its moisture content, drying time, crude fibre content and colour attributes. Combined effects of drying techniques and pre-treatments were significant (p<0.005). The crude fiber and amino acid contents were higher for HB pre-treated samples convectively dried at 65°C whereas maximum rehydration ratio was observed in convectively dried KMS pre-treated samples dried at 75°C. Overall, the HB pre-treatment followed by 65°C convective drying was found to be the best combination for retaining quality attributes of radish leaves. Top Keywords Blanching pre-treatments, Drying, Radish leaves, Vegetable waste. Top |