Amino acid profile of soft-boned milkfish (<i>Chanos chanos</i> Forsk.) with different cooking temperature and pressure

Abstract Soft-boned milkfish was most popular food product from Semarang, Central Java Indonesia. Milkfish have high protein content and very good taste however milkfish’s flesh meat contains with many thorny bones. The milkfish was processed using a pressure cooker so that the bones can be softened and could be safely eaten. During softening the bone, the fish temperature and pressure were used greatly affect the concentration of amino acids composition. One of the amino acid components such as lysine and glutamate, are known to be very sensitive to high temperatures. The purpose of this study was to determine effect of cooking process that affected on of pressure, temperature and time in the processed soft-boned milkfish. The research was conducted using the Completely Randomized Design (CRD) method consisting of four treatments, first treatment was K as a control (which brand that best seller commercially at Semarang city with combination of 130°C; 2.5 atm; 70 minutes). Treatment A (115°C; 1.5 atm; 90 minutes), B (130°C; 2.3 atm; 70 minutes), and treatment C (121°C; 2 atm; 80 minutes), all treatments were done with 3 replications. The testing parameters were amino acid composition, total moisture content, bone hardness, SEM and consumer preferences. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) in order determine the difference between treatments, data were tested with the Honestly significant Difference (BNJ). Tender soft-boned milkfish with the cooking method of 115°C; 1.5 atm; 90 minutes was the best result with quality criteria on moisture content 51.60%, bone hardness 18.74N. All Amino acid content such us arginine, lysine, valine, glutamic acid, aspartate acid was higher from other treatments. The cavity in the meat microstructure was not broken and hollow form. The best consumer preferences were 8.06 &lt; 8.15 that mean all consumers were accepted the product from point of appearance, texture, flavour, and aroma.