Physicochemical, microbial, and sensory evaluation of cook-chilled Korean traditional rice cake ( Backseolgi) during storage via various packaging methods.

Backseolgi is a Korean traditional rice cake, which is prepared by steaming the rice flour. After cook-chilling processing, backseolgi samples packaged by a modified atmosphere package (MAP), top sealing package (TSP), and linear low density-polyethylene package (LDPA; control) were evaluated in regard to microbial safety and sensory characteristics during storage. During storage at 30°C, the cell numbers of aerobic, psychrophilic, and anaerobic bacteria for the MAP sample increased to below 2 log CFU/g for 10 days, whereas the control and TSP samples increased more than 5.0 log CFU/g after 4 days. After 50 days of storage at 3°C, the cell numbers in the MAP sample were below 1.0 log CFU/g, whereas they were approximately 3.0 log CFU/g in the control and TSP samples. In the case of the sensory evaluation, the MAP sample score was above 5.0, whereas the scores of the CON and TSP samples were 1.0. As a result, MAP was identified as the most effective packaging method for increasing microbial safety while maintaining the sensory characteristics of the cook-chilled backseolgi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]