Abstract

Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is an important food crop in Vietnam and other countries. Raw taro tuber could be converted to value-added product via oil frying. Consumers highly preferred the deep-oil fried taro-chip but they did not accept excessive oil uptake in these products because it was related to health concerns. This research was conducted during 2020 at Soc Trang Nanotech laboratory, Vietnam to evaluate the influence of microwave, ultrasound and pulsed electric field pre-treatments on the physicochemical and sensory quality properties of the fried taro chip. Results showed that ultrasonic pre-treatment resulted to a lower oil uptake, texture hardness while a better L* (0 = black; 100 = white), a* (—a = greenness; +a = redness) values as well as overall acceptance. Pre-treatment contributed a significant improvement on the quality of taro chip during oil frying.