Study On Food Characteristics Of Purees Made From Carrot And Squash

The elaboration and the determination of physico-chemical properties of carrot and squash purees as well as the purees from the mixture of the two vegetables, were studied in this work. A part from the single carrot and squash purees, seven other purees from the mixture of the two vegetables were manufactured. The amount of water added was depended of its content in the raw material. Citric acid (0.2%) and sugar (45-50g/kg according to raw material content) were added to the purees made for both the sensory evaluation and the microbial analysis. The entire joint purees showed higher content of vitamin C despite it decreased during the storage. The Total soluble solids content increased during the storage and the purees presented a pseudo plastic behaviour. The carotenoid content of purees was not affected by thermal treatment. Of the three elements (Na, K and Mg), the content of the potassium was the highest. Results of the sensory evaluation indicated that the panelists liked both the purees and specially squash-carrot 2:1. The lightness of the purees decreased with the increase of the two vegetables in the mixture except the puree 5 (squash - carrot 3:1). The redness decreased with the increase of squash in the mixture whereas it did not increase as expected with the increase of carrot. However, the yellowness increased with an increase of squash and decreased with an increase of carrot in the mixture. After 4 months of storage, the purees were still acceptable because of the very low level of yeast and mould.