Factors Affecting the Flavor of Frozen Fried Chicken

Abstract

INTRODUCTION IT has been postulated that fatty acids give rise to aliphatic carbonyl compounds which presumably contribute characteristic odor and flavor to cooked chicken. Pippen et al. (1958) successfully separated and identified 18 volatile carbonyl compounds by chromatographing 2–4 dinitrophenylhydrazone derivatives. Present in large quantities, the carbonyls included n-hexanal, n-hept-2-en-l-al and acetaldehyde. The workers postulated that fatty acids in the chicken fat were precursors of certain aliphatic aldehydes arising through oxidative cleavage at points of unsaturation in the fatty acid chain. Pippen and Nonaka (1960) studied the volatile carbonyl compounds of cooked chicken, finding larger quantities of n-hexanal than of the other carbonyls. They identified no carbonyl compounds having flavor characteristics resembling the complete flavor spectrum of cooked chicken, but they concluded that carbonyl compounds in chicken broth are sufficiently concentrated so that one or more of them could contribute significantly to the overall flavor. Lineweaver and Pippen (1961)…