Influence of cooking conditions on cooking loss and tenderness of raw and marinated chicken breast meat

The influence of different cooking treatments on tenderness and cooking loss, as main quality characteristics of chicken breast meat, was investigated. Industrial skinless chicken breast meat samples were designated as raw and marinated and cooked in the oven by hot air and hot air-steam mixture at 130, 150 and 170 °C, for 4, 8 and 12 min. Cooking losses were evaluated by weight changes before and after cooking, and tenderness changes were determined on cooked samples by measuring shear force using instrumental texture analysis. Results showed that marination, followed by air-steam cooking is the best combination to obtain the most tender chicken breast slices. The time and temperature of cooking showed similar effects on cooking loss and tenderness: short cooking time (4 min) and temperatures of 130-150 °C resulted in lower cooking losses and best meat tenderness, in both not marinated and marinated meat. Statistically significant correlations between tenderness and cooking loss indicated that the cooking loss correlated better with cooking time than with cooking temperature. An opposite phenomenon was observed for meat tenderness.