Vegetable-carved processing in hermetically sealed container

Abstract

The study of vegetable-carved processing packed in hermetically sealed container for 5 types of plant e.g., carrot, pumpkin, radish, green papaya and cucumber which carved into rose or leave shape and preserved in acidified-pickle (7.23% vinegar, 64.81% water, 0.81% salt, 27.00% sugar and 0.15% lactic acid, pH 3.27). The processing were conducted by sanitized carved-carrot, pumpkin and radish in peroxyacetic acid solution (80 mg/l, 3 min), or dipped in tap water (3 min) for green papaya and cucumber. Then, all carved-vegetables were blanched in calcium chloride solution (0.5%, 3 min) followed by preserved in acidified-pickle in plastic box with a lid and stored for 4 days at room temperature (25ºC). The results showed that pH and °Brix decreased during 4 days storage, and showed obviously tended to equilibrium. However, carved-radish and cucumber were spoiled by microorganisms as a film on the surface of pickle solution, and gas bubble was occurred inside a container on 4th days of the storage. Hence, carrot and pumpkin were used in the next experiment which preserved in preservative-added recipe (27.03% vinegar, 27.03% water, 0.9% salt, 45.05% sugar and 200 ppm sodium metabisulfite, pH 3.39) with hot-filled method in glass bottle. Treatment was compared with carved-vegetables preserved in acidified-pickle and kept at 4oC as the control. The pH of samples of pickle solution, carved-vegetables and mixed-sample of both treatments, showed lower than 4.6, and °Brix were gradually decreased during storage periods.The appearance of both treatments were maintain good and not different between treatments. Shelf-life of carved-carrot, -pumpkin and -radish stored in hermetically sealed container was up to 7 days. Total bacteria count, Escherichia coli, yeast-molds were not exceeded than the standard limited by Ministry of Public Health and Staphylococcus aureus was not detected