Influence of ultrasound and osmotic dehydration on apparent density of potato strips during frying

In this study, ultrasound and osmotic dehydration pretreatments were used to produce good quality fried potato strips. Effect of the pretreatments (ultrasound at 28 and 40 kHz frequencies and osmotic dehydration at salt solution concentrations of 2 and 4%) on apparent density of potato strips fried for 4 minutes with intervals of 60 seconds at temperatures of 150, 170 and 190°C were investigated. Also, changes in the apparent density were modeled in terms of frying time, oil content and moisture content in order to control the optimal process conditions and improve the final quality of fried products. Results showed that osmotic dehydration and its combination with ultrasound pretreatment significantly reduced the apparent density of the pretreated samples. In addition, experimental data were well fitted by proposed models in this study having high correlation coefficients.