RAK College of Agriculture, Sehore (RajmataVijayarajeScindiaKrishiVishwaVidyalaya, Gwalior) M.P.
Spine gourd (Momordica dioca L.) is a seasonal vegetable with rich nutritional attributes. Designed experiments were conducted to report the application dehydration (cabinet, solar) and treatments (blanching, sulphiting) on the quality of the dehydrated spine gourd rings in terms of moisture removed asproduct recovery, rehydration ratio and cutting strength after dehydration; moisture content, ascorbic acid, protein content and sensory quality of the dehydrated samples. Data wasanalyzed with SAS, and least significant difference (LSD0.05) with no preliminary ANOVA was used for comparison between means of main response of dried spine gourds rings. It was observed that maximum removal of moisture and significant (p<0.05) effect on rehydration ratio happened to take place with solar dried samples with potassium bisulphate treatment. The treated samples exhibited a depleted final moisture content as well. The titratable acidity values were non significantly (p<0.05) affected by drying method as well as the treatment procedure. Better retention of vitamin C and highest protein content (5.57±0.21 g/100g) was recorded with cabinet drying. Cabinet drying conditions was observed to have higher values of sensory scores across treatments. The overall acceptability of dried spine gourd spines was highest for cabinet drying (7.40±0.52).
Keywords:Blanching; Potassium metabisulphate; Cabinet drying; Solar drying; Sensory qualities