Quality of the pre-cooked potato strips processed by Radiant Wall Oven

- Steam processing and infrared heating used to produce reduced-fat French fries.
- RWO baked pre-cooked potato strips had at least 85% less fat than fried strips.
- Consumer acceptability of the RWO baked pre-cooked potato strips was over 75%.
- Consumers were willing to compromise sensory quality for reduced-fat potato strips.

Steam processing was paired with the Radiant Wall Oven (RWO) to produce reduced-fat baked potato strips. Par-fried frozen potato strips, having 5 × 1 × 1 cm3 dimensions, were pre-cooked in steam chamber for 75 or 90 s. Then, steam-processed potato strips were heated in RWO at different temperatures: 450 °C for 3 or 3.5 min, at 500 °C for 2.5 or 3 min, at 550 °C for 1.5 or 2 min. Instrumental and sensory quality characteristics of RWO processed pre-cooked potato strips were investigated and compared to deep-fat fried samples at 177 °C for 3 min. RWO baked pre-cooked potato strips at 500 °C for 3 min, regardless of steam processing time, were similar to control in terms of texture, chroma, shrinkage and yield, yet contained 86.8% less fat. A trained panel indicated that texture of the potato strips, baked in RWO at 500 °C for 3 min after steam processing for 90 s, was not significantly different than that of the control samples. Finally, consumer panel indicated 51.2% acceptability and 35% willingness to purchase the RWO-baked pre-cooked potato strips. However, acceptability of the RWO-baked pre-cooked potato strips rose to more than 75% when fat content and corresponding calories were revealed.