Effect of frying treatments on texture and colour parameters of deep fat fried yellow fleshed cassava chips

Effects of frying treatments on texture (hardness) and colour parameters (L, A, B, ΔE) during deep fat frying of yellowfleshed cassava root slices (TMS 01/1371) were investigated. Slices (dimension of 40mm × 25mm × 3 mm) were divided into three portions and subjected to vacuum frying (fresh slices) and atmospheric frying (fresh and predried slices) and equivalent thermal driving forces (ETDF) of 60∘C, 70∘C, and 80∘C were maintained during frying. The quality attributes investigated were best preserved in vacuum fried chips. The overall colour change in chips fried under vacuum conditions at 118∘C and 8 min was the least (21.20) compared to fresh and atmospherically predried ones (16.69 and 14.81, resp.). A sharp reduction in the breaking force was obtained for all frying treatments after 8 min and this effect was the least in vacuum fried chips. First-order kinetics modeled the changes in quality attributes for all the temperatures investigated. Rate constants k (min−1) obtained for vacuum frying were almost equal to that of atmospheric frying while activation energies for hardness and colour change were 53.30 and 467.11 KJ/mol, respectively. Quality attributes studied were best preserved during vacuum frying.