Food Chemistry

604 12 Meat

aromas are used as the taste-bearing substance
(cf. 12.9.3). These substances are dried with
and without a carrier (belt vacuum drying, spray
drying). Flour (wheat, rice, corn), legume flour
(peas, lentils, beans), and starches (potato, rice
and corn) serve as binding agent. Apart from
native flour or starch, swelling flour or instant
starch that is pregelatinized by drum drying or
boil extrusion is used. In fact, especially good
swelling and dispersing properties are achieved
by agglomeration. Legumes are precooked in
pressure vessels for up to several hours before
drying. The rehydration time can be reduced
to 4–5 minutes by freeze drying. Standard prod-
ucts are normally air dried on belt dryers. Pasta
is subjected to a precooking process by means of
steam and/or water or used in a fat dried form,
like in the Far East.
Rice is added in a pre-cooked, freeze-dried form
or as reformed rice (dried rice flour extrudate).
After the appropriate pretreatment (e. g., blanch-
ing), vegetables and mushrooms are dried (drum,
spray, and freeze drying). Products with instant
character are obtained by centrifugal fluidized
bed drying. In this process, which is used on
a large scale for carrots and rice, the products in
a perforated and basket-shaped rotating cylinder
are dried with hot air of ca. 130◦C with simultan-
eous puffing. The fats used are mainly beef fine
tallow, hardened plant fats, chicken fat, and milk
fat. These fats are often applied in powder form
(cf. 14.4.7). The meat additives are primarily beef
and chicken which are air dried or freeze dried.
To perfect the taste, salt and spices are used as
ground natural spices or in the form of spice ex-
tracts.
To improve the technological properties, dry

soups and sauces contain a series of other
ingredients, e. g., milk products, egg products,
sugar, and maltodextrin, acids, soybean protein,
sugar coloring, and antioxidants.

12.8.2 Production

The production of dry soups and sauces essen-
tially involves mixing the preproduced raw ma-
terials. The process steps are shown in Fig. 12.36.
Weighing of individual components from the
raw material silos and their pneumatic dosing

Fig. 12.36.Production of dry soups and sauces

into the mixer are conducted automatically. In

soup mixtures that contain breakable compo-

nents, such as pasta and dry vegetables, a basic

mixture of the powdery components (binder, fat

powder, extract powder etc.) is first produced in

high-speed mixers. The breakable components

are gently mixed in a second slow mixing step.

The mixtures are agglomerated for special uses

(instant soups and sauces); they generally have

no coarse components. This is usually conducted

in batchwise or continuously operated fluid bed

spray granulators. In continuous agglomeration

plants (Fig. 12.37), extract substances and fat

are dosed in separated systems. Alternatively,

finished soup/sauce mixtures are agglomerated

by back wetting with steam or water and dried

Fig. 12.37.Production of instant products by agglom-

eration