1. Development of Fish Crackers and Its Quality Characteristics
T. Anuja, K. Premakumar and T. Gayathiri
Department of Agric. Chemistry, Faculty of Agriculture, Eastern University, Sri Lanka.
ABSTRACT
Fish is a perishable product mostly produced by nature and obtained in an excessive
amount and due to that, the steps of processing and preserving fishes play an important
role in fishery industry. Fish products are generally favoured by the people as the typical
characteristics and changes of their nature such as in terms of odour, flavour, appearance
and texture and also has chemical contents required by human body. An investigation was
carried out to develop fish cracker of high nutritive value with best organoleptic quality.
The mostly consumed fish species Seela, Viral and Tilapia were used for the development
of fish crackers. The cooked fish meat was mixed with other ingredients and made dough.
After the steaming (60-90 min.) and sudden chilling (5-10 °C) of dough, they were sundried
and fried. The nutritional parameters of fish crackers in terms of crude protein, crude fat,
moisture content, ash content and pH were evaluated. The organoleptic evaluation was
conducted by nine point hedonic scale test and parameters were colour, texture, taste,
flavour and overall eating quality. The experiment was performed in a Randomized
Complete Block Design (RCBD).
The findings revealed that there were significant differences in nutritional and
organoleptic qualities among the fish crackers. The fish cracker of Tilapia indicated
significantly highest value of crude protein content (12.28 %) and followed by the fish
cracker of Seela (10.61 %). The crude fat content was also highest in fish cracker of
Tilapia (22.55%). The fish cracker of Seela exhibited highest pH value (6.7) whereas the
fish cracker of Tilapia showed the lowest pH value (6.6). According to the organoleptic
evaluation, the fish cracker of Tilapia performed better and showed the best overall eating
quality among the treatments. In the present study, the fish cracker of Tilapia depicts as
superior for the development of fish crackers as the best nutritional and overall eating
quality. This research clearly indicated that the development of fish crackers is found to be
the efficient way of processing to maintain qualitative characteristics.

2. Key words:
Seela, Viral, Tilapia, nutritional parameters, Organoleptic quality,
fish cracker, nine point scale test.
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