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Spices, essence, edible essence and salty essence are widely used in modern industry. Reasonable use can improve the color, fragrance and taste of products. The relationship and difference between spices, essence, edible essence and salty essence, as well as the development history and use points of essence are sorted out in detail.
01. Introduction to spices
Spices are raw materials that can emit fragrance and fragrance, and help to improve, increase and imitate the aroma and fragrance of substances. Spices include natural flavors and synthetic flavors.
Natural flavors include animal natural flavors and plant natural flavors. Animal natural spices come from animal secretions and excretions, mainly including musk, civet, beaver and ambergris. The application of animal flavor is limited due to its scarcity and high price.
Plant natural flavor is a mixture of various chemical components extracted from plants' flowers, leaves, stems, fruits, skins and roots, as long as it is essential oil, oleoresin, tincture, extract, etc. Due to the rich sources of raw materials and simple production methods, the natural flavor of plants plays an important role in the flavor industry.
Synthetic perfumes are flavoring compounds made from natural or chemical raw materials through chemical synthesis, such as maltol, ethyl maltol, furanone, vanillin, chicory alcohol and other monomers. Among them, the artificial synthesis of furanone by Fenmeiyi Company in the 1970s can be called a major breakthrough in the history of world essence development, and its emergence has greatly promoted the development of essence industry, especially meat essence.
02. Introduction to essence
Essence is a kind of spice mixture prepared by mixing several or even dozens of spices in proper proportion.
Because the aroma of natural and synthetic spices is relatively monotonous, most of them cannot be directly used in flavoring products alone, so the spices we use in our life are all essence prepared by the flavorers.
The composition of essence is divided into head fragrance, body fragrance and base fragrance by Poucher, a famous British perfumer in 1954, according to the length of time of volatilization and retention of fragrance on the identification paper. Essence consists of three parts: head fragrance, body fragrance and base fragrance.
The first fragrance belongs to the fragrance with high volatility and strong diffusion. The fragrance is left on the appraisal paper for less than 2 hours. The first fragrance gives people the initial sense of beauty, which is very important as the first impression of essence.
Body fragrance has medium volatility, and it lasts for 2-6 hours on the appraisal paper. It forms the aroma characteristics of essence and is the most important component of essence aroma.
The base flavor, also known as tail flavor, has low volatility and rich retention. It remains on the perfumery paper for more than 6 hours, which is also part of the aroma characteristics of essence.
03. Introduction to edible essence
Edible essence refers to the essence with various food flavors, which is carefully prepared by the mixers by referring to the flavors of various foods and using edible spices and edible additives. It includes essence such as fruits, milk, poultry, meat, nuts, candied fruits, wine, etc. Edible additives include carriers, solvents and additives. The carriers and solvents include sucrose, dextrin, starch, ethanol, soybean oil, propylene glycol, benzyl alcohol, distilled water, etc
Edible flavor is the basis of developing edible essence, and its development focuses on natural flavor and (or) imitation of natural flavor. In recent years, a large number of new food flavors containing nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen heterocycles have been synthesized at home and abroad, such as pyrazine, thiophene and furan compounds, and further prepared into different essence, which are used for flavoring various foods, making food flavoring to a new level.
There are many classification methods for food essence, and different companies may adopt different classification methods. According to different physical properties, food essence can be divided into water essence, oil essence, emulsified essence, paste essence, powder essence, etc. According to different tastes, food essence can be divided into sweet essence, salty essence, milk essence, etc.
04. Introduction to salty food essence
Salty food essence is also called salty essence, which is also called salty essence. It is a kind of essence classified according to taste. At present, the definition of salty food essence is based on the definition of salty food essence in light industry standard QB/T2640-2004 (the standard has been replaced) issued by the National Development and Reform Commission of the People's Republic of China, It is "a mixture composed of one or more of the thermal reaction spices, food flavor compounds, spices (or their extracts) and other flavor ingredients with edible carriers and/or other food additives, used for flavoring salty food."
It can be seen that the source of salty food flavor mainly has two ways: first, it is produced by the flavor precursor in the food base material through thermal reaction during the thermal processing; The other is provided by salty food essence and/or spice. The flavor substances derived from the above two pathways in food have no essential difference in chemical structure. They are composed of the five basic elements C, H, O, S and N that constitute the life system. The most common ones are various alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, acetals, ketals, carboxylic acids, esters, lactones, organic sulfides and heterocyclic compounds.
The manufacturing methods of salty food essence mainly include flavoring method, thermal reaction method, and the method of combining flavoring and thermal reaction. The spices used for blending include natural spices and synthetic spices. The main raw materials of thermal reaction are amino acids, reducing sugar and other ingredients. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), hydrolyzed animal protein (HAP) and yeast are important sources of amino acids.
05. Study on Maillard Reaction in Salty Food essence
Maillard reaction is also called thermal reaction (or carbonyl ammonia reaction). This reaction is quite complex. For salty food essence, it is mainly based on sugars and sulfur-containing amino acids such as cysteine. It occurs during heating, including oxidation and decomposition of fatty acids, thermal degradation of sugars and amino acids, carbonyl ammonia reaction and secondary or tertiary reactions of various products.
The industrial production of salty food essence uses animal and plant protein hydrolysates, yeast autolysates as the main source of amino acids, combined with Maillard reaction of glucose, xylose and other monosaccharides, and adds some amino acids according to different meat flavor characteristics, such as beef flavor should add more cysteine.
Advantages of Maillard reaction essence:
1. It has high temperature resistance and antioxidant capacity, so it has good storage stability, less aroma loss when heating, and long fragrance retention time.
2. It belongs to natural meat essence, so the aroma is very lifelike, the flavor is natural, and the security is the best.
3. The meat is full and delicious, and is the best flavor enhancer at present.
4. There are no strict requirements for the processing conditions of flavored products, which can be used at will.
06. Development of edible essence
After entering the 21st century, people's food structure has undergone greater changes, the proportion of self-sufficient food consumption has decreased year by year, and the demand for some convenient, nutritious, leisure, functional and healthy industrial food has increased year by year. The growth of food industrialization has created a broader space for edible essence, and also put forward higher requirements for the research and development of edible essence.
Although the proportion of edible essence in food ingredients is very small, it plays an important role in food flavor. It can give flavor to the food raw materials, correct the bad smell in the food, supplement the deficiency of the original flavor in the food, and stabilize and improve the original flavor in the food.
In order to match the rapid development of food industrialization and consumers' increasingly picky taste for food flavor, the consumption of essence puts forward higher requirements for the flavoring technology of the flavorers. In addition, it is also necessary to seek more natural, realistic, temperature resistant, healthy and safe essence and flavor. This is a new topic of essence industry research in recent years. The main ones are:
1、 Maillard reaction technology
As mentioned in the previous chapter, it mainly uses spice precursors to prepare essence, which is lifelike and natural, and is the largest selling natural salty essence at present.
2、 Supercritical extraction technology
Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is a new chemical separation technology developed by taking advantage of the specially increased solubility of fluids at critical low pressure and above critical temperature. It is found that the increase in the dissolution of organic compounds by fluids at critical pressure and above critical temperature is very surprising. Generally, it can increase by several orders of magnitude, and even reach 1010 times of the concentration calculated by vapor pressure under appropriate conditions (solubility of oleic acid in supercritical ethylene),
Advantages of supercritical extraction technology:
① The products extracted with supercritical carbon dioxide as solvent are non-toxic and pollution-free, and will not bring any chemical residues. It is the safest separation technology.
② . Preserve the original taste of the product, so that heat-sensitive substances can be retained, and ensure that the aroma will not be lost.
③ High extraction efficiency, high content of effective ingredients and pure fragrance.
④ . It can be carried out in an inert environment to avoid oxidation of the product, effectively extract the base fragrance components, and keep the fragrance for a long time.
3、 Microcapsule technology
Microcapsule technology: It is a technology that micro-material is wrapped in polymer film, and it is a micro-packaging technology for storing solid, liquid and gas. Specifically, it means that a certain target (core or inner phase) is completely covered with various natural or synthetic polymer compound continuous films (wall or outer phase), without any damage to the original chemical properties of the target, and then gradually through some external stimulation or slow release function to make the function of the target reappear outside, or to protect the core material by the shielding effect of the capsule wall, The diameter of microcapsules is generally 1-500 μ m. The thickness of the wall is 0.5-150 μ m. At present, it has developed a particle size of 1 μ Ultramicro capsules below m.
Microencapsulated particles are expanded to 0.25-1000 in some instances μ m。 When the particle size of microcapsule is less than 5 μ M, it is not easy to collect due to the intensification of Brownian motion; When the particle size is greater than 300 μ M, its surface friction coefficient will suddenly drop and lose the role of microcapsule. Generally, the film wall thickness of capsule is 1-30 μ m。 Most cosmetics use 32 μ M and 180 μ m。 The film wall thickness of ultra-thin wall microcapsule is 0.01 μ m。
Overseas microcapsules have been used in covering cream, humectant, lipstick, eye shadow, perfume, bath soap, powder, etc. Microcapsules can improve the stability of products and prevent mutual interference between various components.
Advantages of microencapsulation technology essence:
① The problem of oxidative deterioration of some essence and fragrances is effectively solved, and the shelf life is extended;
② It effectively solves the denaturation and loss of essence and flavor due to high temperature, especially for biscuits, sausages, candy, fried food, hot pot and other products requiring high temperature process conditions.
③ It can slowly release the wrapped essence and fragrance, and can be used for bubble gum, buccal tablets, tea and other products that need to slowly release the added essence.
07. Talking about the application of salty essence in meat food
The meat products mentioned here include meat, meat products and imitation meat products. The imitation meat products include puffed food, spicy cooked food, imitation food and other food with meat flavor and meat flavor.
With the continuous improvement of people's consumption level, consumers' consumption concept of meat food has changed greatly, from the pursuit of high-energy meat food in the past to the pursuit of sensory characteristics of meat food, and the pursuit of delicious, safe, convenient and healthy is the trend of food industry development.
While paying attention to food safety and nutrition, consumers are also pursuing more delicious food. Salty essence can provide the aroma and fragrance of meat food, make the meat food flavor to a new level, and play a role in the development of the meat food industry.
The role of salty essence in meat processing is as follows:
1. Add fragrance
Some raw materials used in meat food processing have no meat flavor, and no obvious flavor is produced during processing. For example, simulated meat products, Hunan spicy cooked food, stewed tofu slices, meat flavored puffed food, etc., salty essence must be added to enhance flavor.
2. Enhance fragrance
Because most of the meat sources used in processed food are from aquaculture, growers and fattening agents are used in a large amount in the process of aquaculture, which shortens the growth period and reduces the content of the prerequisite of flavor in raw meat, resulting in the low aroma of processed products and insufficient meat flavor;
In addition, the temperature, time and moisture required in the processing of meat products will affect the formation and loss of flavor substances;
Moreover, frozen meat is generally used as raw material for meat products processing. During the thawing process of raw meat, it will cause the loss of meat juice and the decline of freshness, thus affecting the production of flavor substances in the finished products. The above conditions will use salty essence to enhance the fragrance.
3. Modify the flavor to create new flavor
In the processing of meat products, it will produce its own unique flavor, but the flavor is flat without novelty. In order to meet the consumers' picky taste, it is usually innovative, which depends on the modification of salty essence. For example, pork ham requires a braised or barbecued flavor, it can be added with braised meat essence or barbecued essence.
4. Cover up bad smell
Some processing materials have unpleasant smell, which is difficult to remove completely during processing, or produce unpleasant smell from the new food, so essence or spice should be added to cover up the unpleasant smell, such as the fishy smell of soybeans, the mutton smell of beef, etc.
5. Enhance taste (increase meat feeling)
Maillard reaction essence in salty essence uses protein, reducing sugar and fat as raw materials, and its reactant ratio is the same as many flavor precursors in meat, so the flavor substances produced by Maillard reaction essence have the same taste and aroma as real meat. Therefore, in order to reduce the cost, reduce the content of raw meat, shorten the production time, and improve production efficiency, Maillard reaction essence can be added, Enhance the taste and flavor.