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Quality assessment results of cooked meat can be significantly affected by sample preparation with different cooking techniques. A combi oven is a relatively new cooking technique in the U.S. market. However, there was a lack of published data about its effect on quality measurements of chicken meat. Broiler breast fillets deboned at 24-h postmortem were cooked with one of the 3 methods to the core temperature of 80 °C. Cooking methods were evaluated based on cooking operation requirements, sensory profiles, Warner–Bratzler (WB) shear and cooking loss. Our results show that the average cooking time for the combi oven was 17 min compared with 31 min for the commercial oven method and 16 min for the hot water method. The combi oven did not result in a significant difference in the WB shear force values, although the cooking loss of the combi oven samples was significantly lower than the commercial oven and hot water samples. Sensory profiles of the combi oven samples did not significantly differ from those of the commercial oven and hot water samples. These results demonstrate that combi oven cooking did not significantly affect sensory profiles and WB shear force measurements of chicken breast muscle compared to the other 2 cooking methods. The combi oven method appears to be an acceptable alternative for preparing chicken breast fillets in a quality assessment.

Advantages of air chilling (AC) methods over immersion chilling (IC) methods in quality retention and improvement of deboned chicken breast meat depend on experimental conditions, such as deboning time. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of a dry-AC method on shear force and water- holding capacity (WHC) of broiler breast meat deboned 4h postmortem compared to hot-boned (no chill) or immersion-chilled meat. Ready-to-cook broiler carcasses were hot-boned, chilled by ice water immersion (0.3 C, 50 min) or chilled by cross-flow cold, dry air (0.7 C, 150 min). Pectoralis (p.) major and p. minor were o o removed from the bone at 4 h postmortem. Shear force was measured using a Warner-Bratzler (WB) method and WHC was estimated using cooking yield, drip loss, amount of bound water (filter paper method) and water uptake (swell/centrifugation method). Regardless of muscle type, the WB shear force value of A C samples was significantly lower than that of hot-boned samples; however, there was no difference in the shear force between AC and IC. Regardless of measurement methods, there were no differences (P > 0.05) in WHC between the three treatments. These results demonstrate that when compared to no chill, AC followed by 4 h postmortem deboning can lead to a difference in WB shear values while WHC properties can be retained. For broiler breast meat deboned 4 h postmortem, AC does not result in any significant differences in shear force and WHC when compared to IC.

Relationships between 2 instrumental and 2 sensory methods for cookie color assessment were determined. For sensory tests, panelists (n = 8 to 10) compared color of cookies (3 formulations × 2 cookie types) to equidistant physical color references in a light booth and to digital color references in a sensory workstation using unstructured line scales. For instrumental methods, the CIELAB color model and hue angle were determined with a spectrophotometer and with graphics software using digital camera images. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc comparisons verified differences (P 0.94; P < 0.001).