Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Abstract

Vegetable "Salami" with High Nutritional and Functional Properties

Roma Giuliani, Aurelia De Filippis, Teresa De Pilli, Antonio Derossi and Carla Severini

Vegetables are strongly recommended in human diet since their consumption is closely related to the decrease of cardiovascular diseases. Despite these advantages, many people do not like vegetables as it, as opposed to some foods that are very attractive for their sensorial characteristics but nutritionally unbalanced. Among them, ‘Salami’ are typical Italian fermented products made up of pork meat and back-fat that are very appreciated for their flavour and taste but present a high content of fatty saturated acids and cholesterol. This research aimed at the study and realization of new fermented vegetable Salami, with an appropriately balanced composition of nutrients and able to simulate the meat Salami in terms of colour and consistency. Those characteristics were obtained by choosing vegetables with good sensory and structural characteristics and optimizing the ripening processing that, for this type of Salami, was 18 days at 25°C and 75% RU in early days and 45% RU in the final stage of ripening. During ripening stage, lactic bacteria concentration was more than 108 CFU/g. This value represents the minimum threshold to consider a food as probiotic in vitro. The chromatic characteristics of vegetable Salami during ripening showed a reduction of L* (from 50.27 to 39.02) and b* indexes (from 44.92 to 30.59) caused by the gradual dehydration of vegetable matrix. As a matter of fact, a sudden increase of shear stress, hardness, chewiness and springiness of the slices was recorded as a function of maturation.