Effect of pre-drying on texture and oil uptake of potato chips

The objective of this work was to determine the effect of the pre-drying treatment over the texture evolution and the oil uptake of blanched potato slices during frying. Prior to frying, potato slices (Panda variety, diameter: 37 mm, width: 2.2 mm) were blanched in hot water at 85 °C for 3.5 min. Blanched potato slices were used as the control. Some blanched slices were additionally air-dried until reaching moisture contents of ∼60 g/100 g-wet basis-(slices blanched-dried). Either only blanched or blanched-dried potato slices were fried at 120, 150 and 180 °C until reaching final moisture contents of ∼1.8 g/100 g (wet basis). The texture and oil content of the slices were measured periodically during frying. Normalized Maximum Force (MFn) was the parameter used to model the textural changes in the potato slices during frying in both the initial tissue softening process and the later crust development process. Both the frying temperature and the pre-drying treatment had a significant effect (P>0.05) over the final texture and oil content of the fried potato chips. When frying at 120 °C, potato chips were crispier and contained more oil than potato chips fried at 180 °C. Pre-drying dramatically decreased the oil absorption and significantly increased (P>0.05) the crispness of the blanched potato slices after frying.