Evaluation of coating and frying conditions on physicochemical properties of deep fat fried Falafel

Fried foods are favored by consumers because of the crispy crust, desired flavor and color, but these properties are accompanied by some undesirable effects to the consumers due to the considerable amount of oil absorption during frying process. Nowadays, the main challenge is to enhance the frying process by controlling and lowering the final fat frying of the fried foods. In this study, the effect of hydrocolloids (methyl cellulose, pectin and methyl cellulose- pectin) on the quality of deep- fat fried Falafels at 150, 170 and 190 ˚C for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 min were evaluated. Moisture content decreased whereas oil content, hardness, volume and color of potatoes increased with increasing fried time, fried temperature. The lowest oil content values are given for samples coated with methyl cellulose- pectin. The control samples had the highest percentage of fat content in all the frying time range.