Effect of egg white powder on quality and structural properties of restructured buffalo meat slices

In India, the main source of buffalo meat is old buffaloes, and such spent animal meat is tough, and fetches low demand. Generally, spent animal meat is tough, and has poor binding capacity, thus unable to be consumed fresh, which necessitates different binding technologies for efficient transformation of old and spent buffalo meat into nutrient rich, value-added, restructured meat products. The present work was conducted to develop the restructured buffalo meat slices (RBMS) using egg white powder (EWP) as an innovative novel binder within the meat batter at different levels i.e. 0, 1, 2, and 3% (C, T1, T2, and T3, respectively). The developed RBMS were subjected to evaluation on efficacy of different concentrations of egg white powder on different quality characteristics during restructuring process. RBMS prepared with 3% EWP (T3) showed significantly (p < 0.01) higher cooking yield, batter stability, and water holding capacity than other treatments. RBMS prepared with 3% EWP (T3) had significantly (p < 0.01) lower diameter shrinkage in the product, and improved the moisture and protein contents in both raw batter and cooked product. The addition of EWP significantly (p < 0.01) decreased the hardness, and increased the cohesiveness values in RBMS. Significantly (p < 0.01) better instrumental colour scores and superior sensory scores were recorded in RBMS added with EWP. Scanning electron microscopy photographs of RBMS batter showed that the proteins appeared to be well formed strands in EWP-treated samples, and the solid gel network was also found strongly binding the meat gels. A well-built matrix with more thick strands was observed and further increased with increasing EWP content in RBMS added with EWP batter gels. In the case of transmission electron microscopy photographs, RBMS added with 3% EWP showed that egg proteins were evenly distributed, filling both the intracellular and some of the intercellular spaces between cells; and the egg proteins formed a continuous network, interwoven with water and muscle proteins. Based on the obtained results, the addition of EWP provided improved physico-chemical characteristics such as better proximate composition, textural quality, and instrumental colour scores; and superior sensorial scores than control samples. Therefore, the addition of 3% EWP to restructured meat batter can be recommended as a novel binder for the development of different value added and restructured meat products using buffalo meat.