Improvement of the quality of cured rabbit meat product (Chan Si Tu) using Staphylococcus xylosus as starter culture

Starter cultures can help improve the quality and safety of traditional fermented meat products. This work was conducted to evaluate the effects of the inoculum of Staphylococcus xylosus on the quality characteristics of a Sichuan cured rabbit product (Chan Si Tu). Physicochemical analyses showed that meats inoculated with S. xylosus had a significant increase in lightness, redness, cohesiveness and chewiness (P<0.05). In addition, a lower content of nitrite, diethylnitrosamine and histamine, was observed in the inoculated samples (P<0.05). The thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) value in the S. xylosus incubation group was 0.108±0.004 mg/kg, which was significantly lower than that in the control group (P<0.01). Interestingly, a lower TBARS value was observed in the incubation samples through storage. Furthermore, solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) analysis identified a total of 73 volatiles, and the species and abundance of theses volatile compounds were higher in the samples with added S. xylosus, and 12 with odour activity value>1 were proposed as the most odouractive compounds that enhanced the complexity of the product. Thus, inoculation with S. xylosus in the cured rabbit meat product (Chan Si Tu) can effectively enhance the product quality.