Production of Bamieh with tragacanth coating and evaluation of some of its qualitative properties during storage

Production of food products with low fat content is increasing because of high demand for low caloric foods and also nutritionally safer. Food coatings can be a good alternative to solve this problem and to reduce oil absorption during frying. Bamieh is one of the confectioneries produced by frying and during the frying process; the oil uptake is high. In this research, solution with 0 (control sample), 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 % tragacanth gum were used as coating agent. Produced samples were stored at refrigerator for 30 days and effects of coating were evaluated on some qualitative properties at first day and each 10 day. Results showed that coating could reduce oil uptake from 18% for 0.25% coating to 68% for 0.75% coating. Also coating could reduce moisture content of the samples. Coating had no significant effect on peroxide value, but caused an increase in acidity in last days of storage, however, the increase in acidity was at acceptable level. Organoleptic evaluation showed that coating can increase acceptability of the Bamieh samples. According to the obtained results coating can be suggested as a suitable method to produce Bamieh with low oil content, higher acceptability and comparable stability with control sample.