The Ratios of Pre-emulsified Duck Skin for Optimized Processing of Restructured Ham

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the quality of duck ham formulated with duck skin through the pre-emulsification process. The experiments to investigate the quality characteristics of duck ham were carried out to measure proximate composition, cooking loss, emulsion stability, pH, color, texture profile analysis, apparent viscosity, and sensory characteristics. Duck ham was prepared with various ratios of duck skin in pre-emulsion as follows: Control (duct skin 30%), T1 (duck skin 20% + pre-emulsified duck skin 10%), T2 (duck skin 15% + pre-emulsified duck skin 15%), T3 (duck skin 10% + pre-emulsified duck skin 20%), and T4 (pre-emulsified duck skin 30%). As the ratio of duck skin to pre-emulsified skin changed, the quality of duck ham in terms of moisture content, fat content, cooking loss, emulsion stability, lightness, textural analysis, apparent viscosity, and overall acceptability changed. The moisture content of T2 was the highest (p<0.05) and that of the control and T4 was the lowest (p<0.05). The fat content of control was higher than all treatments (p<0.05). T2 had the lowest values in cooking loss, total expressible fluid, fat separation, hardness, springiness, and gumminess (p<0.05). The score of overall acceptability of all treatments with pre-emulsified skin was higher than control (p<0.05). Therefore, the pre-emulsification process can improve the quality characteristics of duck ham and 1:1 ratio of duck skin and pre-emulsified skin was the proper ratio to improve the quality characteristics of duck ham.