Effects of varied drying methods on the proximate composition, sensoryqualities, and rehydration characteristics of mud eel (Monopterus cuchia)

Mud eel (Monopterus cuchia) is a tasty, medicinally valuable, nutritionally rich amphibious freshwater fish predominantly found in Bangladesh. This study aimed to investigate the impact of drying on the proximate compositions, sensory, and rehydration characteristics of dried mud eel. The fish were longitudinally sliced into fillets with an average thickness of 0.5–0.8 cm and then dried at different drying methods with or without pretreatment of 10% salt (NaCl). The Peleg's and Arrhenius models were applied to fit the rehydration kinetics data. The current result revealed that the proximate composition varied with the drying methods viz. moisture (10.54-20.73%), protein (59.47- 75.80%), lipid (2.08- 3.84%), and ash (11.53-17.44%). Sun-dried mud eel had the better result for all sensory parameters except color, which was found to be higher in smokedried mud eel. Peleg's model described the water hydration data and equilibrium moisture content for all dried samples between 28 and 60°C. The coefficient, which was always very high (R2 >0.90), shows that Peleg's model fits the experimental data well at all temperatures. For all dried mud eel samples, except for oven-, smoke-, and salt-treated oven-dried samples, Peleg's constant K1 declined linearly as the hydration temperature rose from 28 to 60℃. Peleg's capacity K2 decreased with the increment of soaking water temperature except for oven-dried samples. The highest equilibrium moisture content results in samples treated with salt, which indicates that salt prevents tissue disruption during drying. All samples' activation energy (Ea) value was 8.08-25.99 kJ/mol. Overall, this study addresses mud eel that could be dried with sun drying followed by oven drying and salt-treated smoke drying for reliable outputs.