Tips to Travel Smoothly in Calamari Trip

We had trail out one trial and one test with the witness of some panelists for the sensory evaluation. Here are some of the precautions and suggestions that I had find out when we do our trial and test:

Precaution
-Fry until the Calamari float lightly. Overcooking is a common mistake to make the calamari tough, chewy, rubbery.
-Make sure that the oil is hot enough to avoid the calamari to stick on the pan and too oily after cooked.
-The calamari must cut into equal size so that it’s cooked at the same moment, else some in smaller size will overcooked cause it to be rubbery and tough.

Suggestion
-Make the frying powder into batter form so that it is tastier and no oil contamination.
-Soak the calamari ring in the sour milk will lead cause the calamari ring to be more tender because it contain more lactic acid to act on the muscle.
-Do not rinse off the milk after soaking since it can make the calamari stickier to the frying powder and contribute some flavour.

Enjoy your meals with our Calamari Lord!!!

References

1. San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico, 2008, Calamari. [online] Available from: http://sancarlosmx.mywowbb.com/view_topic.php [Accessed on 13rd October 2009]
2. K.Suklim, Squid, 1998. [online] Available from: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:bnUc8DGCop4J:scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-122198-110243/unrestricted/suklim2.PDF+lactic+acid+milk+degrade+ collagen+ in+ calamari&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=my=my&client=firefox-a [Accessed on 13rd October 2009]
3. R.C. Whiting, E.D. Strange, 2006, Effects of lactic acid on epimysial connective tissues of muscles used for restructered beef. [online] Available from: http:///www.interscience.wiley.com [Accessed 13rd October 2009]
4. Elzbieta Skierka and Maria Sadowska, 2007, the influence of different acids and pepsin on the extractability of collagen from the skin of Baltic cod (Gadus morhua). [online] Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com [Accessed 13rd October 2009]

Behind the scene

Who says man can't cook? See how both of them concentrating on cooking? Haha

Lei Yoon , you should listen to Chef Yen, hahahaha

Yaya, I know the oil was hot~! abandon the ship~!!!

I was doing nothing and only wait to eat... Hahaha

Aiyo...

Although they let me eat something pick up from floor, but we still had a great time working together... Just promise me don't have any microbes on it...

Theory Behind (Discussion)

Peoples always said that bath with milk can make their skin become fairer, softer and also provide a lots of vitamins like A and D in improving their skin complexion. Nevertheless, it also can be used in improving the texture of calamari rings that we used to eat.

3 bowls of calamari rings are prepared and each of them undergoes the following processing method:-

Bowl 1 - Without soaking in milk
Bowl 2 - Soaked in sour milk for 3 hours
Bowl 3 - Soaked in fresh milk for 12 hours

After all the calamari rings are being fried, the results are as following:-

Bowl 1 - Rubbery and toughening texture with strong fishy smell
Bowl 2 - High tenderness and juiciness in texture and without fishy smell
Bowl 3 - Mild tenderness and juiciness in texture if compared to calamari rings in bowl 2 and without fishy smell

• Squid contains 75-84% of water, 13-22% of crude protein (including the myofibrillar protein), 0.1-2.7% of lipids and 0.9-1.9% minerals.

• Tough and rubbery calamari rings are due to the effect of heat denaturation of the myofibrillar proteins and the high level of moisture loss during prolonged cooking.
  
  
• Mantle part of squid is cut before transformed into calamari rings. The purpose is to remove the intermolecular cross-links and also increase the surface area which helps the lactic acid in the milk to penetrate and act onto the calamari rings.
  
  
• During marinating treatment of connective tissue with lactic acid in sour milk, it changes the physico-chemical properties of collagen and hydrolyzed the non-collagen proteins. These causes the solubilizations of collagen in calamari rings to the sour milk and thus improve the degradation process of the muscle fiber in calamari rings and leads to the effect of tenderization of calamari rings.
  
  
• Factor like the amount of collagen in the squid mantles leads to different level of improved tenderness as collagen varies with squid species which is presumable responsible for the tough texture. (Eg, Mantle of Mex species contains 11.1% of collagen whereas the mantle of Loligo species contains only 3.0% of collagen)
  
  
• Lactic acid in milk played an important role for the improved juiciness and tenderness in calamari rings during the marinating. Marinating in acidic solutions such as the sour milk (sour milk is made by adding one tablespoon of vinegar to a cup of whole milk, mix and let it stand for 5 mins) being used in this experiment contain higher amount of lactic acid (0.12% to 0.20%) had decreases the mechanical resistance of the calamari rings.
  
  
• This treatment is a combination of weakening or degrading of the myofibrillar structure of high connective tissue content to a lesser extent. Furthermore, it also increased the water-holding capacity in calamari rings which can be observed from their swelling appearance as the reason behind of improved juiciness. Increased water-holding capacity solves the problem of easily fallen coating of calamari as for the crispiness on the outer part.
  
  
• Better tenderness and juiciness in calamari rings in bowl 2 compare bowl 3 is because the content of lactic acid in sour milk is higher than in flesh milk which contains approximately only 0.002% (about 2 parts per 100,000) lactic acid.
  
  
• Lactose is the main substrate for LAB (lactic acid bacteria) in producing lactic acid in fresh milk. In other words, lactose and the amount of LAB of the fresh milk are the two main factors for the lactic acid content in fresh milk in marinating the calamari rings.
  
  
• Questions might be raised as the existence of LAB inside the fresh milk since the most milk sold in the markets were undergoes heat treatments such as pasteurization, sterilization and ultra heat treatment for safe consumption and extend the shelf life of the products. The milk that used in bowl 3 is pasteurized milk. Milk usually are pasteurized at the temperature of not less that 71.7C for at least 15 seconds (max is 25 seconds).
  
  
• Research had shown that acid-forming bacteria such as LAB are still surviving in the pasteurized milk and this is the results why pasteurized milk are sour normally even before the expired date stated.

Helping Domo!!

How to help Domo??? It need a well preparation first before presenting the calamari rings to his girl friend right??? Don't worry, Lord of calamari rings already did 2 trial test at home and one formal test at the Food Science lab on 25th of September....Here we come to help you with result we got~~~

Calamari rings recipe:

2lbs. squid, sliced into 1/2 inch rings

2 cup of ready-made flour mix (spicy)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 carton of fresh milk

oil

Domo'd problem can be identified as rubbery, strong fishy smell calamari rings with easily fallen off coating. Actually the problem can be solved by a simple ingredient that can be found in most kitchen, which is..... MILK! (Moo~~)

Milk contains lactic acid which is produced by the indigenous microorganisms in the milk, the lactic acid can degrade the collagen in muscle fiber of squid, thus improving the structure of the calamari rings.

Domo, let's start preparing your notebook and jot down the steps!
First, wash the squid with cold water.

Then, soak the squid in the milk for at least 3 hours, or overnight inside the refrigerator. The soaking period allows the lactic acid to act on the squid.




The squid is then cut into 1/2 inch sized calamari rings, the size is carefully measured in order to prevent under-cooking or over-cooking during frying process.

The calamari rings in blue Tupperware are rings without soaking in milk, on the other hand, in white Tupperware are the calamari rings that had been soaked for 12 hours. The calamari rings soaked in milk was observed to be whiter in colour and softer in texture.

The calamari rings are lightly breaded with flour mixture, do not over dipped, because it will cause the rings to be too salty.

Make sure that all part of the calamari rings are covered with the flour mix.

The oil is heated to frying temperature, make sure the oil is hot enough, because the calamari rings will stick onto the pan if the oil is not hot enough.

When the oil is hot enough, insert calamari rings into the frying pan. Stir the oil always to prevent sticking of calamari rings onto the frying pan.

When the calamari rings are golden in colour, immediately take it out from the hot oil. This is because over-cooked calamari rings are always chewy and rubbery.

The calamari rings are served hot.

59 Panelist was presented with one set of calamari rings to evaluate the effect of milk soaking towards structure of calamari rings. The panelist was volunteers from UCSI student which were picked randomly. 5504 was the calamari rings without soaking in milk, while 8093 was the calamari rings soaked that had been soaked in milk for 12 hours.

Wow, there are 51 out of 59 panelist vote for 8093. The result shown that majority of the panelists agreed that the calamari rings soaked in milk had better attribute in terms of texture, juiciness and had less fishy smell.

Domo, let your girlfriend try this~! I bet she'll love this!

Introduction

Scene: Domo's house

Time: Sunday afternoon

Domo's girlfriend is coming over to Domo's house. Domo want to prepare calamari rings for her... but...

Have you experienced eating calamari rings with easily fallen off coating and a rubbery structure? That was indeed an unpleasant sensation while enjoying seafood, in turn might resulted in low acceptability of squid among certain individuals.

Crispy deep fried calamari rings is made from squid rings marinated and breaded with special flour mixture. The purpose of marinating before frying is to add flavour and crispiness to the calamari rings. In Malay, it is called "sotong" while "calamari" is an Italian name.

The word to describe a tasty calamari is lightly breaded and tender, it should be crispy on the outer layer and juicy in the inner layer yet not rubbery. However, some calamari rings are rubbery and the coating will separate from the rings easily. HELP!! How to solve the problem? Domo's girlfriend is coming soon!