Processing and Value Addition

Value Added Products

1. Ready-to-serve Fish Curry in Flexible Pouches

Value addition and diversification to satisfy the ever changing and diverse demands from the importing countries as well as urban consumers at home are some of the major challenges faced by the Indian fish processing industry. Value addition is the most talked about word in the fish processing industry these days because of the increased realisation of foreign exchange and high unit value of such products. One such value-added product developed at CIFT is fish curry processed in flexible pouches.

Fish curry in a ready-to-consume form processed in metal cans is an item in the overseas markets. Sardine, seer, mackerel, herring etc. are available in curried form in cans. However, the metal cans used as containers impose several restrictions on the viability of the process. Firstly, metal cans impart an undesirable taste to the product on storage. Secondly, as far as India is concerned, tinplate for making cans is imported and hence it is disadvantageous economically. Aluminium containers available in India also are not suitable for this purpose because of the poor mechanical strength and high incidence of leakage through seams. Flexible pouches till now available in the country were not heat stable and suffered from several other disadvantages like poor seal strength, poor barrier properties, pin holing etc.

The earlier attempts on popularising a ready-to-serve fish curry could not meet with success because of the above limitations imposed by the metal containers. Now, the CIFT has successfully developed a suitable three-layer configuration of flexible pouches which can perform the packaging function equally well as metal cans, and is free from the disadvantages met with in them. This is a retortable flexible pouch based on Polyester/ Aluminium foil/Cast polypropylene. Now, flexible pouches are manufactured in India employing the configuration developed by CIFT and this opened the way for commercialisation of heat processed fish curry in flexible pouches. CIFT has standardised the process for the production of fish curry in these pouches using over pressure autoclave and the curry processed in them has remained without any change for over a year at room temperature CIFT has a research/pilot model of autoclave with full provisions for monitoring all functions associated with thermal processing of flexible pouches and. allied infrastructural facilities.

CIFT can offer state-of-the-art technical consultancy services on heat processing of food products in flexible pouches in ready-to-serve condition

2. Fish Balls

There are several varieties of fish, which do not command a ready market as fresh fish, but are comparable to many table fish in nutritive value and other attributes. One of the ways of ensuring effective utilisation of such fish is to process ready-to-serve or ready-to-cook value added 'convenience' a product, for which there already exists great demand from within the country as also from abroad. Fish ball is one such product prepared using fish mince and starch that can be processed as a coated product or as a heat-processed product in a suitable fluid medium.

• Mix mince prepared from fish using a mechanical meat bone separator after heading, gutting and washing thoroughly with 1 % salt and 5% corn starch (if required, spices like garlic, ginger etc. can be added).


• Prepare balls, 2-3 cm in diameter, from the resultant mass and cook in boiling 1% brine for 5-10 minutes.


• Cool the cooked balls after which they are battered and breaded.


• Pack the balls preferably in thermoformed trays as such or after flash frying in hot vegetable oil.


• Preserve by freezing.

Though mince from different species of fish can be used for processing fish balls, threadfin bream (Nemipterus japonicus), Pallikora (Otolithus argenteus) and Barracuda (Sphyraena spp.) are found to yield satisfactory products. Mince from freshwater fishes such as Rohu (Labeo rohita) and Catla (Catla catla) also can be used. However, in such cases, the mince needs to be refined by passing through a mechanical strainer to get rid of the interstitial spines.

Fish balls

Source: www.arondanburg.com

3. Fish Cutlets

One of the many products developed by the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology is fish cutlets. The basic raw material required for preparation of this product is cooked fish or 'fish kheema' (fish meat picked from whole fish by means of a meat picking machine).

Ingredients

Method of preparation

• Cook fish mince in boiling water for 20 min.


• Drain off the water. (In case of whole fish, dress the fish and cook for 30 min. and drain).


• Remove skin, scales and bones and separate the meat.


• Add salt and turmeric to the cooked meat and mix well.


• Fry chopped onions in oil till brown. Fry chilli and ginger. Mix these with the cooked meat.


• Add mashed potato and spices and mix well with the meat.


• Shape 40 g each of this in oval or round form, dip in beaten eggs, roll in bread powder and store in deep freezer.


• Thaw and fry in oil before use.

Fish cutlets

Source: www.jpforms.net

4. Fish Wafers

Dried, ready-to-fry-and-serve wafers, employing a carbohydrate as main base and incorporating salt and several other ingredients with or without spices are very popular in most parts of the country. Such products are known by different names in different languages as 'Kondattam' in Malayalam, 'Vathal' in Tamil, 'Sandings' in Kanarese, 'Odiyalu' in Telugu and Tikiya' in Bengali. Recipe for such a product enriched with fish protein and method of its preparation is given below

Ingredients

Method of preparation

• Homogenise the processed fish meat with litre of water for 10 mins in a mechanical grinding machine.


• Add the corn flour, tapioca starch and salt an< rest of the water and blend the whole mass for one hour.


• Spread the homogenised mass uniformly in aluminium trays in a thin layer of 1-2 mm thickness and cook in steam for 3-5 mins.


• Cool to room temperature.


• Cut the cooked material into desired shape: and dry under sun or preferably in artificial dryer (at 45° C to 50°C) to a moisture content below 10%.


• Pack suitable lots of the dried product ii sealed polythene bags or glass bottles anc store in a cool and dry place till marketing.

The product can be stored in good condition for two years. Permitted food colours can be incorporated if needed, at the time of mixing the other ingredients with the processed fish meat in order to get desired colour. Generally, this type of product is used as side dish after frying in oil.

Fish wafers

Source: Central Institute of Fishery Technology, Kochi

5. Fish Soup Powder

Soup powders prepared from different materials like vegetables, meat, egg, chicken etc. are very popular and widely consumed in different parts of the world. These are rich in dietary constituents like protein, vitamin, fat and minerals. However, soups making use of fish are not so common. But fishes of low economic value landed in our country can very well be employed for preparing a product with similar qualities.

Chief Ingredients

Method of preparation

Blending of the processed fish meat: Disperse the processed fish meat in about 150 ml of water and blend the material in a waring blender.

Incorporation of fried ingredients and reblending: Fry the onion in vegetable fat in quantities as shown in the composition above. When the onion becomes light brown, add the powdered coriander and pepper and stir. Remove from fire.

Add the fried onion and all other ingredients other than milk powder to the blended fish and again blend till it becomes a thick fine paste.

Drying: Pour the whole mass in thin layer in aluminium trays and dry in artificial dryer al about 70°C. Powder the dried mass; add the skimmed milk powder and powder well to get a homogenous product.

Packing: Pack the soup powder in airtight, polythene lined, aluminium foil bags or in cans. Storage life of the product is one year.

Fish soup powder

Source: Central Institute of Fishery Technology, Kochi

Last updated: 1-3-2007