Abstract
Koikoku is a traditional dish of carp steak with bones and scales cooked in miso soup. Sake, alcoholic beverage, is usually added to Koikoku soup unlike other various miso soup. Experiments were conducted to examine the effects of added Sake on the texture of Koikoku during cooking by chemical analysis, physical tests and sensory evaluation tests. Instrumental tests revealed that the hardness of carp meat increased gradually during ooking for ten hours, while that of bones and scales decreased. Similar changes in hardness were also detected by the sensory tests. When Sake was added to the cooking soup, the hardness of carp meat and fragility of its scales were more clearly increased in the sensory tests and instrumental tests. Moreover, sensory tests sugessted the superiority in palatability for Koikoku with added Sake than without Sake. The elution of proteins and amino acids from scales and bones was recognized during cooking, accordingly the softening of scales and bones was assumed to be relation to the elution of the organic compounds.
