Effect of Potassium Chloride Added to Kitchen Salt Used for Preparing Pickled Vegetables (Part II)

Effect on Kimchee-Korean Style Pickled Vegetables

Abstract

Six kinds of salt mixtures were prepared by the addition of potassium chloride to sodium chloride. The contents of potassium chloride in each salt were none, 40, 60, 80 and 100%, respectively. These salts were used in preparing Kimchee-Korean style pickles of Chinese cabbage, cucumbers and Japanese radish. The effect of the content of potassium chloride added to the salts on the composition of the pickles and the results of sensory test with the pickles were studied.
The results were as follows.
1) Potassium and sodium penetrated into vegetables in proportion to the ratio of potassium and sodium contents in the salts used.
2) The contents of calcium, magnesium, amino-nitrogen and organic acids of the pickles were not affected by potassium content in the salts.
3) Results of the sensory test revealed a tendency of increase in degree of non-preference accompanying the increase in potassium content except for color. According to the overall evaluation by Korean subjects, degree of non-preference for all the samples using 100% and 80% potassium chloride added salts was significantly larger compared to that prepared with 100% sodium chloride, with 1 or 5% risk. Some times, even the samples using 60% potassium added salt were not preferred by Japanese subjects significantly.
4) Degree of preferences with regard to odor, flavor and overall evaluation for various samples of Kimchee prepared with the potassium chloride added salts were almost coincidental between Japanese and Korean subjects except for tastes.