408 Chapter 23
a band saw to slice frozen raw restructured
hot - set logs of beef into steaks and cubes.
When cubes with a more natural rather than
mechanically diced appearance are required,
frozen logs should be tempered to – 2 ° to
− 3 ° C and hand diced using a knife. The por-
tioned pieces can be utilized immediately
without the need for further storage, but if
merchandized frozen, the raw or cooked por-
tioned pieces can be individually quick
frozen and made to free - fl ow before packag-
ing. The product should be rapidly frozen to
≤ – 18 ° C and held at that temperature during
storage and distribution (Booren and Mandigo
1987 ).
Cooked portioned restructured meats can
be packed in overwrapped trays or vacuumed
and/or gas - fl ushed in form/fi ll/sealed
pouches, blisters, shrink packs, and skin
packs; their frozen counterparts, including
steaks, strips, or cubes, can be packaged in
bags, pouches, trays, overwraps, and PE -
coated paperboards (Harte 1987 ). In a previ-
ous study (Farouk 2001b ), hot - set restructured
cubes were manufactured from beef clods,
boneless lamb, and venison shoulders, and
packaged as follows: bulk packaged in a
polyethylene bag (to imitate poly - lined
cartons); impermeable vacuum bags without
vacuum; impermeable vacuum bags with
partial vacuum; and impermeable vacuum
bags, under a modifi ed atmosphere of nitro-
gen. They were then stored for one year with
no signifi cant deterioration in the physical,
chemical, and sensory attributes of the
products.Cold - Set Whole - Tissue Restructuring
The basic steps involved in cold - set restruc-
turing include: (1) raw material selection and
preparation; (2) application of cold - set
binder; (3) molding or shaping; (4) cold -
setting; (5) portioning; and (6) packaging and
storage. Steps 1, 3, and 5 are mostly similar
to hot - set restructuring. The major difference
is that cold - set binding systems do not needfor portioning and to hold the portioned
pieces together for hot - setting, the shaped
restructured log should be portioned and
cooked while frozen. If the portioned pieces
are not held together suffi ciently to enable
the protein matrix at the bind junctures to be
heated to the desired binding temperatures,
restructured individual pieces of meat in the
portion will fall apart due to shape distortions
caused by the shrinkage of the meat proteins.
The bind strength at the juncture between
meat pieces depends on the nature, amount,
and functionality of the protein at the junc-
ture prior to heating. Purslow and his associ-
ates (Purslow et al. 1987 ; Lewis and Purslow
1990 ; Savage et al. 1990 ) demonstrated in a
series of model studies that the binding of
pieces in heated restructured meat was
affected by the muscle fi ber alignment with
respect to the adhesive junction and the size
of the meat pieces. The authors observed that
the tensile adhesive strength of restructured
meat with the fi bers at a right angle to the
junction in both pieces of meat was three
times higher than when one or both pieces of
meat contained fi bers running parallel to the
adhesive junction.
Portioning, Packaging, and Storage of
Hot - Set Products
Restructured logs can be portioned into dif-
ferent shapes and sizes using a range of
equipment, including slicers, dicers, and
saws. The portioning can also be done manu-
ally using handheld knives. As mentioned in
the previous section, uncooked restructured
logs must be deep or surface crust frozen for
portioning to maintain the shape of the por-
tioned pieces and to hold the pieces together
until hot - set. Restructured logs can be por-
tioned to look like steaks, cubes, or strips like
stir - fries. Regardless of the form the portions
are to assume, it is important to use appropri-
ate equipment to obtain clean - cut surfaces
and to avoid pulling apart the bound pieces
in the process. Farouk and Zhang (2005) used