Abstract:
With busy lifestyle, time management has become difficult for general public,
deviating people from preparing healthy, delicious food at home. An easily usable
spice cube, consisting a mixture of powdered spices, with other required
condiments, is a better solution for this problem. The best recipes of the spice cubes
for chicken, dhal, and fish ‘ambul thiyal’ curries were selected, using sensory
evaluations, considering the significantly (P<0.05) highly accepted sensory
attributes (color, aroma, texture, and flavor). The proximate analysis results of the
selected products revealed that, the moisture, crude fat, crude protein, total ash,
crude fiber and carbohydrate contents of the spice cubes were 2.8±0.9%, 9±2.1%,
0.4±0.2%, 11.2±5.8%, 1.5±0.6%, and 75.1±6.4%, respectively. The calorific values
per 100 g of the spice cubes for chicken, dhal, fish ‘ambul thiyal’ curries were 385.23
kcal, 408.76 kcal, and 355.16 kcal, respectively. Of the spice cubes for chicken, dhal
and fish ‘ambul thiyal’ curries, the initial water activities were 0.81, 0.79, and 0.77,
and the initial pH values were 5.0, 5.6, and 2.9, respectively. During three weeks of
shelf life analysis, under ambient storage, the Free Fatty Acid Value of the spice
cubes for chicken, dhal and fish ‘ambul thiyal’ curries with half the recommended
vitamin E amounts, showed significantly (P<0.05) lesser increment (5.38-6.87 to
5.38-7.39), than of those without (7.62-9.15 to 7.84-9.52). The microbial count of
the spice cubes for chicken, dhal and fish ‘ambul thiyal’ curries with half the
recommended Potassium sorbate amounts, also showed significantly (P<0.05)
lesser increment (134.67-11,446.67 CFU/g to 5,130.67-16,694 CFU/g), than of
those without (163.33-11,257 CFU/g to 6.698.67-22,853 CFU/g). The spice cubes
were packaged using a triple laminated aluminium foil and stored under ambient
conditions. The total cost of one spice cube (50 g) for chicken, dhal and fish ‘ambul
thiyal’ curries were Rs. 75.38, Rs. 61.59 and Rs. 23.44, respectively.