Trop Sci 43.

3_CRC 4/9/03 12:51 pm Page 156

Trop. Sci. 2003, 43, 156161

The effect of pre-treatments on the

reconstitution of hot air-dried plantain
P-NT Johnson1, JG Brennan2 and DB MacDougall2
Food Research Institute, Box M20, Accra, Ghana ([email protected], [email protected]). 2School of Food
Biosciences, The University of Reading, UK

Abstract Moist infusion of plantain using 40B sucrose or 15B sucrose and 60 mg/g NaCl,
or puffing of blanched plantain for 5 min after 3 h air-drying before the main drying
improved the reconstitution characteristics of the dried plantain.

Keywords: plantain, osmosis, puffing, dehydration, microstructure.

Introduction
Hot air-drying of plantain is used commercially to produce plantain flour, which can be
incorporated into weaning food and fufu, a popular food in West Africa. As with other fruits
and vegetables, this drying often gives products which are shrunken and difficult to rehydrate
due to the loss of osmotic properties, crystallization of polysaccharides and coagulation of
protoplasmic proteins (Horn and Sterling 1982). Pre-treatments such as moist-infusion
(Jayaraman 1988), explosion puffing (Saca and Lozano 1992), pneumatic drying (Jayaraman
et al. 1982), freezing (Kompany et al. 1991) and blanching can improve the reconstitution
characteristics. This paper reports the effect of moist-infusion and higher temperature short-
time puffing on the reconstitution of hot air-dried plantain.

Materials and methods

Medium-sized plantain fingers (var. French Horn), about a quarter ripe, were hand-peeled
and cut into uniform 1 cm cubes, with the middle pith portion discarded. Samples of 300 g
were blanched, at 95C for 5 min., in either sucrose solutions (from 20 to 60B) or a
combined solution of sucrose (from 0 to 20B) and 60 mg/g of NaC1 and held for up to 30 h
at 4C. Another batch of 220 g cubes either fresh or blanched in water at 95C for 5 min. was
initially air-dried at 50C for 2 or 3 h in a fan-assisted cabinet dryer to dry the surface to facil-
itate puffing. Then they were puffed in a simple batch-fluidized bed of fine salt particles at
130C and 1 atmosphere pressure for 3 to 8 min. Subsamples were taken periodically to
determine the moisture content by vacuum oven-drying at 70C for 24 h. The partially dried
cubes were further dried at 502C, in a fan-assisted cabinet dryer for 3 h to 0.25 g H2O/g dry
solids.
Dried cubes were rehydrated in 10 parts of deionized distilled water at 50C for 1 h (the
method of Neumann 1972). The rehydrated cubes were equilibrated in sealed polyethylene

Accepted 18 November 2002

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Pre-treatment of hot-air-dried plantain 157

bags for 24 h at 281C and the moisture contents were determined by drying in a vacuum oven
at 70C for 24 h. The texture of the rehydrated samples was determined using the Stevens
Compression Response Analyser with a 4 mm diameter cylindrical probe made to penetrate
each rehydrated cube to a distance of 5 mm at a speed of 20 mm/min. The maximum load
attained in each test was recorded as the firmness of the sample. The bulk volume of the fresh
and dried samples was measured by displacement in toluene and the bulk shrinkage coefficients
were calculated according to Lozano et al. (1983) The particle density was determined with a
pycnometer and the degree of porosity calculated according to Lozano et al. (1983). The L*, a*
and b* uniform colour space values, based on the CIE system, were measured using the
Hunterlab Colorquest spectrophotometer (MacDougall, 1988). The microstructure was
examined using a Joel JSM scanning electron microscope. Analysis of variance of the means
was carried out and means were compared using the LSD method at the 5% significance level.

Results and discussion

The higher concentrations (> 50B) of sucrose solution removed moisture more quickly (Figure
1) but the samples treated with sucrose of 40B absorbed most moisture on reconstitution
(Figure 2). The water reabsorption correlates with the firmness. The lower absorption during
rehydration of samples pre-treated with higher concentrations of sucrose may be because solute
uptake during the moist infusion leads to a concentrated solid layer under the fruit surface
which reduces the water flow (Saurel et al. 1994). This could also increase the firmness. As
more water is absorbed the less firm the plantain becomes. For samples pre-treated in sucrose
and salt (Figure 3), both the water absorbed and the resistance to puncture remained constant
above 5B. These cubes absorbed more water than the highest value from sucrose alone.
The electron micrographs (Figure 4) show that pre-treatment with 40B sucrose made the
cells rounder, but less compact and more separated than cells from plantain not pre-treated.
Blanching and puffing gave better reconstitution than puffing alone (Figure 5). Plantain
samples that were blanched and puffed gave better reconstitution than puffing alone (Table 1).
Blanching may have caused gelatinization of the starch granules in the cells on the cut surface,
which would increase their surface area and open up the structure to allow increased absorption
of water. This observation is in line with the effect of puffing on potato, carrot and elephant
yam (Jayaraman et al. 1982; Shilton and Niranjan 1993), in such vegetables as potato, carrot
and elephant yam. The high degree of porosity of blanched and puffed plantain would be an
advantage if convenience foods like crisps are to be made from plantain.
The cubes pre-treated in 30 and 40B sucrose were similar in colour to the fresh, whereas
those pretreated in 60 and 70B were darker and duller. The samples pre-treated with the
combined sucrose and salt showed non-enzymic browning.

Conclusion
The dehydration of plantain using moist infusion (with 40B sucrose or 15B sucrose and
60 mg/g NaC1) or puffing for 3 min after initial drying for 3 h as pre-treatments significantly
improves the reconstitution characteristics of the dried material.
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Table 1. Properties of dried and reconstituted plantain cubes, after initial air-drying at 50C and puffing ( s.d.)

Initial condition Duration of Duration of Bulk shrinkage Porosity1 Moisture gained Firmness of the Observations
initial air-drying puffing coefficient1 during reconstitution reconstituted sample
(h) (min) (g/g d.s.) 1 (kgf) 2
12:51 pm

Fresh, unblanched 2 3 0.89 (0.01)a 0.12 (0.01)a 0.75 (0.03)a 0.87 (0.03)a Final sample partially dried
5 0.93 (0.01)b 0.23 (0.02)b 0.82 (0.01)a 0.78 (0.04)b Final sample partially dried
8 n.d. 0.23 (0.01)b 0.88 (0.01)b n.d. Surface of samples
disintegrated after rehydration
3 3 0.88 (0.01)a 0.56 (0.01)c 0.81 (0.04)a 0.75 (0.03)b Final sample partially dried
Page 158

5 0.90 (0.01)a 0.51 (0.04)c 0.85 (0.02)a 0.31 (0.07)c Final sample partially dried
8 n.d. 0.45 (0.01)d 0.98 (0.02)c n.d. Bloated dried samples,
disintegrates after rehydration

Blanched in water at 2 3 0.86 (0.01)a 0.74 (0.02)e 0.78 (0.01)a 0.81 (0.02)b Final sample partially dried
95C for 5 min 5 0.88 (0.01)a 0.79 (0.03)e 0.85 (0.01)a 0.73 (0.03)b Final sample partially dried
P-NT Johnson et al.

8 0.96 (0.01)c 0.65 (0.01)f 0.91 (0.01)b 0.79 (0.05)b Surface of samples disintegrates
after rehydration
3 3 0.99 (0.01)d 0.75 (0.01)e 0.98 (0.04)c 0.65 (0.04)d Dried and reconstituted sample
intact
5 1.01 (0.01)e 0.42 (0.03)d 1.12 (0.06)d 0.45 (0.03)e Bloated dried sample,
disintegrates after rehydration
8 n.d. n.d. 0.85 (0.02)a n.d. Final sample disintegrated

Means in the same column followed by different letters significantly at P = 0.05. n.d. = not determined.
1Five samples in each of five replicates; 2Twenty samples used in each of five replicates.
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Pre-treatment of hot-air-dried plantain 159

1.75
60B

Moisture content (g/gds.) 50B

1.5 40B

30B

1.25 20B

1
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 30

Time (h)

Figure 1. Effect of moist infusion in sucrose solutions at 4C.

2.5
Moisture of reconstituted cubes

2 Firmness
Moisture content (g/gds.)

1.5

0.5

0
0 20 30 40 50 60

Sucrose solution (B)

Figure 2. Effect of sucrose pre-treatment on moisture content and firmness of reconstituted plantain.

Acknowledgement
We thank Dr Lynda Bonner of the School of Plant Sciences, The University of Reading, for
technical help.
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160 P-NT Johnson et al.

2.5 2
Moisture of reconstituted cubes

Moisture content (g/g dry solids)

2 1.6
Firmness

Puncture force (kgf)

1.5 1.2

1 0.8

0.5 0.4

0 0
0 5 10 15 20
Sucrose solution (B) in 60 mg/g NaCI

Figure 3. Effect of sucrose in NaCl pre-treatment on moisture content and firmness of reconstituted plantain.

Figure 4. SEM electron micrographs of cut-surface of plantain. (A) No pre-treatment; (B) pre-treated with 40B
sucrose solution for 16 h at 4C and then dried to 0.25 g/g d.s. Magnification (100).

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Pre-treatment of hot-air-dried plantain 161

Moisture loss (%)

Duration of puffing (min)

Fresh, dried for 2 h Fresh, dried for 3 h

Blanched, dried for 2 h Blanched, dried for 3 h

Figure 5. Effect of drying and blanching on moisture loss during puffing.

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