A new technique to evaluate the effect of chitosan on properties of deep-fried Kurdish cheese nuggets by TOPSIS

•TOPSIS method was used to evaluate physicochemical properties of fried cheese nuggets.•A nondestructive, image-based method to measured mechanical properties of fried cheese nuggets.•The nuggets containing 1.5% chitosan had higher moisture and lower oil contents than others.•Batter formulation, time and frying temperature affected on properties of fried cheese nuggets.

Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method was used to comprehensively evaluate physicochemical properties of fried cheese nuggets so that chitosan (0, 0.5 and 1.5%) was added to batter formulation under different processing conditions namely frying temperature (150, 170 and 190 °C) and time (0-4 min). A non-destructive, image-based method was used to measured mechanical properties of fried, breaded cheese nuggets. The results of this study indicated that all the batters have shear-thinning behavior and the coating pickup was found to be directly proportional to batter viscosity. The highest reduction in oil uptake (22.7%) was observed in samples contain 1.5% chitosan. The deep fried cheese nuggets containing chitosan tended to be higher in hardness and maximum sound peak and lower in porosity in comparison to the control sample. The optimum conditions resulting in desirable physico-chemical properties and minimum oil uptake were cheese nuggets with chitosan content of 1.5%, fried at a temperature of 170 °C for 4 min.