IDENTIFICATION OF VOLATILE FLAVOR COMPOUNDS WITH HIGH AROMA VALUES FROM SHALLOW-FRIED BEEF

Aroma extract dilution analysis of fried beef steak volatiles trapped during frying with two different cooking conditions resuted in 50 prim ary odor compounds with flavor dilution (FD) factors between 4 and 204 8. Beef steak frying at hot plate temperatures of 280 degrees C for 3 min per side of 300 degrees C for 1 min per side, respectively, yielde d statistically significant different results determined in a sensory sequence test. Differences in flavor qualities of the meat samples obt ained by the varied frying conditions became manifest by employing the sensory aroma profile analysis. The flavor extracts were analyzed by high-resolution gas chromatography effluent sniffing and GC/MS. Prepar ative fractionation of sensorially interesting regions of the effluent sniffing gas chromatogram resulted in identification of a large numbe r of overlapping compounds, which would not otherwise have been possib le. Pleasant flavor qualities were much stronger for the 280 degrees C extract than for the 300 degrees C extract. This was mainly due to th e pleasant odorous combination of 2-ethyl-3,5-dimenthylpyrazine and 2- propyl-3-methylpyrazine with FD factors of 2048 in the 280 degrees C e xtract and 256 in the 200 degrees C extract, respectively.