A Study on the Texture Quality of Vietnamese Catfish (Pangasius Hypophthalmus) Fillets after Different Freezing Processes

In recent years, food safety and quality have become critical issues of great concern throughout the world. Although the food freezing process is a very complex process, the emergence of novel freezing processes and technologies has been able to bring high benefits improving the final quality of food frozen products. This study aims at evaluating the texture quality of Vietnamese catfish fillet products after different freezing processes. Experimental samples were carried out with the fresh Vietnamese catfish. These catfish fillet samples were frozen from 12°C to -18°C by conventional air blast freezing (ABF) and magnetic assisted freezing (MAF). The evaluation method for their textural quality is texture profile analysis (TPA). The mechanical-physical properties of catfish fillet samples, which include the frozen ones from different freezing processes and the fresh unfrozen ones, were investigated and analyzed with shear and compressive tests to identify their hardness, gumminess, stringiness, etc. Results obtained from both shear and compressive tests show that catfish fillet samples frozen by MAF were able to maintain the mechanical-physical properties better than ones frozen by ABF. Therefore, applying the innovative freezing processes such as MAF processes could improve the final textural quality of Vietnamese catfish fillet products.