PROCESS FOR PREPARING READY TO RECONSTITUTE MUSTARD (BRASSICA JUNCEA) SAAG

摘要

Brassica juncea, also known as mustard greens, Indian mustard and leaf mustard, is a species of mustard plant. Cultivars of Brassica juncea are grown as green vegetables and for the production of oilseed. Saag is primarily mustard and spinach leaves based curry dish eaten in India and Pakistan with bread such as roti (wheat bread or maize flour roti) or naan. The preparation of Saag involves washing, cutting and cooking of leaves. After cooking the whole mass is mashed to get a smooth curry. Wheat or maize flour is added to improve the taste and texture of the gravy. The preparation of saag is time consuming and involves lot of labour for washing and cutting of leaves and the cooking time is also long. The product developed and disclosed as under yields saag with taste and odor of the freshly prepared saag. The reduction in volume is more than 90 % and also the product has enhanced storability. Ready to eat canned "mustard saag" is available in the market, whereas mustard saag is not available in the form of dried cake or powder. In the present invention, a process for preparing a mixture of dried ingredients in the form of cake or powder referred as the product "ready to reconstitute mustard saag" has been described. The major ingredient of the mixture is mustard leaves. The other ingredients include spinach, fenugreek and other greens. The green leaves are washed, drained and cut. The cut leaves are taken in the known proportion. The mixture of cut leaves is then processed through various steps involving crushing, cooking, pulping, addition of edible flour, cold extrusion, drying, size reduction and packaging. The dried ingredients on mixing with lukewarm / hot water yield the inherent taste and odor of staple ingredients. The moisture content of the dried mixture should be below 8 % (wb). The average Hunter colour values, L*, a* and b* were observed to be 43.19, -0.18 and 19.95, respectively. The geometric mean diameter and bulk density of the developed product were observed to be 199.4 urn and 830 kg/m3. Protein, ash content and crude fibre were observed to be 6.71, 11.73 and 8.53 % respectively. The organoleptic evaluation of the samples was also conducted. Overall acceptability of the product was observed to be 8.2 on 9 point Hedonic Scale which indicated that the taste and colour were acceptable on rec