Research concerning the influence of processing temperatures for tenderness of chicken meat.

It was investigated the influence of different thermal treatments on tenderness and losses, as main quality traits of chicken meat. The samples comprising chicken breast meat were cooked in hot air ovens and hot air-steam mixture at 120, 150 and 180C, for 5, 10 and 15 minutes. The losses were assessed by weighing the samples before and after the thermal processing, as for tenderness, a shear forces measurement device was used, especially designed for texture analysis. In order to obtain the most tender chicken breast meat, the air-steam mixture of thermal processing is the best combination. The time and temperature of thermal process showed similar effect on losses and tenderness. Hence, short cooking time (5 minutes) and temperatures of 120-150C determined lower losses and best value of tenderness. The statistical correlations between tenderness and losses indicated that losses correlated very well with the time-temperature couple of data, but not the same can be told for tenderness, which is not correlated with none of these parameters.