author(s)
Gaikwad BV, Pagarkar AU, Chogale ND, Mohite SA, Chaudhari KJ, Kudale AS, Satam SB, Bhosale BP and Sawant NH

abstract
Lesser sardine (Sardinella spp.) is one of the pelagic shoaling fish mainly landed in huge quantity at Ratnagiri coast. These species of fish have high percent of fat and myoglobin, which effects the quality of surimi produced. The gel strength characteristic of surimi can be improved by using different washing processes. The gel strength characteristic plays important role in preparation of crab/lobsters analogues and other surimi based products. Effect of washing processes viz., conventional washing process (CWP) and alkaline-saline washing process (ASWP) on surimi was compared with unwashed mince (UWM) prepared from Lesser sardine. In the present investigation, surimi were analysed for parameters like gel strength, whiteness, expressible moisture, pH, solubility and organoleptic characteristics. Gels strength of unwashed mince (UWM) and different washing processes like CWP and ASWP were depicted as 28.67, 42.00 and 68.00 g/cm respectively. High values of whiteness and pH with decreasing expressible moisture content was observed in ASWP as compared to others. The results showed that alkaline-saline washing process (ASWP) could improve the gel forming ability of surimi particularly from low quality fatty fish (Sardinella spp.).