Investigation of the effect of pre-drying on amount of oil uptake and quality attribute of potato French fries.

Today's trend to use and production of low/free fat products was increased. Pre-drying of fried products is one of the ways for reduction oil uptake. In this study, the effect of pre-drying at three times (10, 20 and 30 minutes) on amount of oil uptake and quality attributes of produced French fries from three potato varieties of Golestan province (Agria, Kenebek and Satina) was investigated. Results showed that three potato varieties had different amounts of oil absorption which Agria and Kenebek varieties with 14.24 and 14.11% of fat content had the highest and lowest amount of oil absorption respectively. In Agria variety, pre-drying lead to increase of oil uptake in compared with control samples, in this variety blank sample and 10 min pre dried sample with 14.27 and 20.72% oil absorption had the lowest and highest amount of oil absorption respectively (P<0.05). In Kenebek variety fat content of blank sample was 14.11%, pre-drying decreased oil uptake in compared with control samples and increased texture and color of potato stripes (P<0.05). Pre-drying decreased oil uptake of Satina variety stripes too and amount of oil uptake decreased with increase of drying time. Our results reviled that in Satina variety, the highest and lowest amount of oil absorption related to blank sample and 30 min pre dried sample with 11.46 and 6.83% fat content had respectively (P<0.05). Pre-drying increased dry mater content, color and shearing force of stripes in compared with control samples in three studied variety (P<0.05).