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The effect of sodium chloride levels on the taste and texture of dry-cured ham

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Abstract

In order to investigate the effect of NaCl levels (1.5%, 3.5%, 5.5% and 13%) on the taste and texture of dry-cured ham, TPA, myofibril ultrastructure, proteolysis index and free amino acids were evaluated. The proteolysis index (30.76% ± 2.05–11.88% ± 1.90), cohesiveness (0.74 ± 0.04–0.60 ± 0.01), springiness (0.83 ± 0.03–0.71 ± 0.04), and the total free amino acids (9885.3 mg/100 g ± 677.98–3505.15 mg/100 g ± 378.20) decreased with the increase of salt addition, while the hardness (8701.99 g ± 513.37–12057.53 g ± 783.89) and adhesiveness (− 15.73 ± 2.53 to − 32.01 ± 4.95) increased with the increase of salt addition. The myofibril ultrastructure indicated that hams with higher proteolysis index (> 20%) showed more obvious degradation of M-line and Z-disk, and more disordered fiber structure, which was closely related to the degradation of myofibrillar proteins (actin, desmin and troponin-T). Among four groups, the dry-cured ham with 5.5% salt had the highest levels of moisture (45.73% ± 1.13) and umami amino acids (1422.77 mg/100 g ± 119.87), as well as the lowest chewiness (3346.89 ± 121.19). The ham with 5.5% salt also had higher sensory scores of texture (4.83 ± 0.1), taste (5.50 ± 0.2) and overall acceptance (5.51 ± 0.09) as compared to the ham added with other salt levels. These results indicated that 5.5% NaCl treatment showed positive effects on the texture and taste of dry-cured ham, which meets the consumer's demand for dry-cured meat products.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFD0401502), Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LR18C200003), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31871825), and K.C. Wong Magna Fund in Ningbo University.

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  1. Yang Zhou and Changyu Zhou have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-Products, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, China

    Yang Zhou, Changyu Zhou, Daodong Pan, Ying Wang & Jinxuan Cao

  2. Key Laboratory of Animal Protein Food Processing Technology of Zhejiang Province, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, China

    Yang Zhou, Changyu Zhou, Daodong Pan, Ying Wang & Jinxuan Cao

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  1. Yang Zhou
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Zhou, Y., Zhou, C., Pan, D. et al. The effect of sodium chloride levels on the taste and texture of dry-cured ham. Food Measure 14, 2646–2655 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-020-00511-3

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