Effect of Washing on the Jelly Forming Ability of Fish Meat

In manufacturing Kamaboko, which is one of the most important and traditional fish products in Japan having fine texture and high elasticity, fish meat is first washed repeatedly to remove fat, coloring matter like blood, and unpleasant smell. It is generally believed that the washing process is also good, in addition to improvement in color and flavour, for in-creasing the jelly forming ability of fish meat. The work under report was carried out to examine the brief on scientific evidence. In the experiments the arrow-tooth flounder and the saury pike were used to sample meat from; one group of meat was washed well and the other was not. These samples were ground with 3% salt with or without 0.2% potassium bromate. Upon cooking the well washed meat was found forming an elastic jelly with a high jelly strength and little expressible water, while the control (unwashed meat) gave an easily crushable brittle jelly. It is known that elasticity of Kamaboko depends both on the presence of network structure of myosins, and on the amount of myosins. It is inferable, therefore, that repeated washing does not only remove water soluble substances and fat from fish meat, but also brings forth a high concentration of myosins, and gives the meat a favorable condition for highly elastic jelly formation. As addition of fat had no distinct effect on increasing the jelly forming power of washed meat (Table 4), removal of fat by washing does not seem to be a cause of improvement in the jelly forming power. A remarkable decrease of the jelly forming ability, on the other hand, was observed when whole water soluble extractives of meat were added to well washed meat. But no effect on the jelly forming ability followed addition of either deproteinized extractives prepared by cooking whole extractives and removing heat coagulable matters, or hydrochloric acid-soluble inorganic constituents of the extractives (Table 5). Therefore, the presence of water soluble proteins seems to inhibit the formation of elastic jelly. From these results, it is concluded that improving effect of washing on the jelly forming ability of fish meat is attributable to; 1) higher concentration of myosins, basic constituents of Kamaboko and 2) removal of water soluble proteins which are supposed to inhibit myosins from forming network structure in the jelly.