Cooking losses, lipid oxidation and formation of volatile compounds in foal meat as affected by cooking procedure

The present study deals with the effect of four different cooking techniques (roasting, grilling, microwave baking and frying with olive oil) on cooking losses, lipid oxidation (by thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) measurement) and formation of volatile compounds (using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (GC-MS)) of foal meat. Statistical analysis displayed significant (P<0.001) differences on cooking losses by thermal treatment, being lower in foal steaks cooked by grilling (21.1%) and higher in those cooked by microwaving (35.2%). As expected, all the cooking methods increased the TBARS index, because high temperatures during cooking seem to cause an increase of the lipid oxidation in foal steaks, being higher in roasted and microwaved foal meat, followed by grilled and fried cooking. Thermal treatments led to an increase in total volatile compounds (ranging from 734.6 to 955.1 area units (AU) x 106/g dry matter) compared with raw steaks (301.3AU x 106/g dry matter). As cooking temperature increased, an increase in the formation of volatile compounds and lipid oxidation was observed. The major volatile compounds were aldehydes in cooked samples, whereas in raw steaks they were esters. This indicates that the compounds produced by lipid oxidation have a great influence on the flavour of the cooked meat. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.