Abstract
The cooking property of “vegetable gel”, made of vegetable puree and thermostable gelling agent was investigated. Carrot gels were made of carrot puree, gellan gum and calcium lactate. Carrot gels and gellan gum gels were added to RO water or 1% NaCl, and both were heated to 95°C or boiled. Hardness of samples and elution of metal ions from gels were measured. Hardness of carrot gels boiled in 1% NaCl remained at 80% of the initial gel, although half of the Ca2+ in carrot gels eluted. These results indicate the hardening of gels resulting from rich Na+ in heating solution and the softening of gels resulting from metal ion elution where both occurred simultaneously in 1% NaCl. The elution of metal ions from gellan gum gels in 1% NaCl at 95°C were less than those at boiling temperature, and the gellan gum gels heated at 95°C did not collapse, suggesting that the vegetable gels could be cooked in seasoning solution without collapsing at around 95°C.
