Abstract
Chinese cabbage (Brassica pekinenses (Lour.) Rupr.) is one of the most popular and largest quantity vegetables produced in Taiwan. Owing to the concentrated harvest in winter of this vegetable, the surplus always brings a big economical loss to farmers. On the contrary, the shortage of vegetables often occurs in rainy season such as spring and summer. How to process and preserve the vegetables harvested in winter and store them for consumption in the rainy season is a major problem in agriculture and food industry to be solved.
The purpose of this study is to develop a technique to minimally process Chinese cabbage so that it could be stored for a longer time. For this purpose the half cut Chinese cabbage was treated with a solution of 6.0% salt and 0.2% acetic acid under a vacuum of 70 cm-Hg for 16.5 min, then vacuum packed and stored at 5°C or-18°C. The organoleptic quality of the minimally processed Chinese cabbage stored at either 5°C or-18°C for 6 weeks were organoleptically acceptable. The quality (total plate count, lactic acid bacteria, pH, total acidity, vitamin C content, lightness, redness, green index) of the processed Chinese cabbage stored at-18°C for 4 months were found to be similar to that of the initial one.
