Speaker
Description
The processed meat industry in Sri Lanka has responded to the growing consumer demand by offering a diverse range of value-added meat products, including meatballs. Among these, chicken meatballs are the most popular variety in Sri Lankan food culture. Other poultry meat sources such as quail and turkey possess considerable potential as alternative raw materials for meatball production. This presents a significant opportunity for innovation and product development within the poultry meat industry. With the increasing demand for convenient and ready-to-eat food options, there is substantial market potential for non-conventional poultry meat products, including meatballs produced from turkey and quail meat. This study aimed to develop rice-flour-incorporated meatballs from turkey and quail meat using pre-colonial recipes (Mas guli/ Kurakkal) and investigate the effect on proximate composition, physico-chemical properties and sensory qualities of meatballs. According to the sensory and texture analysis results, 10% inclusion was the optimum inclusion rate of rice flour for this formulation. Chicken meatballs were used as the control. The quail and turkey meatballs had significantly (P<0.05) higher protein percentage and lower hardness than chicken meatballs. The highest ash content and lowest fat percentage were observed in quail meatballs (p <0.05). Significant differences (P<0.05) in the colour parameters were observed among the samples. The highest a* value (redness) was observed in quail meatballs, followed by turkey meatballs, while the lowest value was observed in chicken meatballs. Sensory evaluation results showed that quail meatballs had received the highest scores for colour, flavour, juiciness, and overall acceptability. In conclusion, developed quail meatballs exhibited better quality and sensory attributes than turkey and chicken meatballs.
Keywords: Meatballs, chicken, quail, turkey, quality characteristics
