Improving the drying kinetics and microstructure of vacuum‐fried ripened durian chips.

Summary: This research evaluated the effects of process conditions on the physiochemical properties of vacuum‐fried durian chips. Ripened durians were sliced and fried at 90, 100, 110 and 120°C under 8‐kPa absolute pressure. From this study, microwave heating (MWH) during vacuum frying (VF) significantly reduced the frying time by 20% compared to VF (P < 0.05) with the effective moisture diffusivity for VF, pre‐treatment before vacuum frying (P+VF) and VF+MWH at 110°C determined to be 3.63 × 10−09, 4.30 × 10−09 and 4.84 × 10−09 m2 s−1, respectively. VF+MWH produced chips with significantly lower shrinkage, more yellowness (P < 0.05) and higher crispiness (consistent with the microstructure from scanning electron microscopy (SEM)). In addition, VF+MWH drastically decreased oil absorption by 10%, while P+VF yielded the lowest specific energy consumption (SEC). From sensory evaluation, the overall acceptability of VF+MWH chips rose from 5.83 to 6.07 (seven‐point hedonic scale), thus making the product fall into the 'Good' to 'Very Good' range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]