EFFECT OF USING SOME ANTIOXIDANTS AND COATING THE DRIED FISH WITH A FILM OF GUM ARABIC ON QUALITY AND SHELF-LIFE OF SALTED SUN-DRIED BOLTI FISH

Bolti fish are the predominate fish caught from Nasser lake which is near by the national project of Toushky. This region has the optimum weather conditions to achieve the sun-drying of fish. Sundrying of fish is the cheapest and simplest method compared to the other preservation methods. But, the main problem of salted dried fish during manufactur-ing and storage is lipid oxidation which influence the quality and shelf-life of these products. Therefore, dressed bolti fish were treated during drysalting by adding sodium ascorbate at levels 0.1% (A), 0.2%(B), 0.3% (C) in addi-tion to a mixture of sodium ascorbate 0.1% + sodium metabisulfite 0.1% (D), (as antioxidants). Salted sundried treatments were coated by forming a film of gum arabic on the surface of dried fish. All the prod‌ucts were stored at room temperature till the onset of spoilage. Chemical and microbiological attributes and absorption and rehy-dration percent (immediately after drying) were evaluated for all the products. During the storage period, changes of some chemical and mi-crobiological attributes as well as sensory evaluation of cooked and un-cooked samples were investigated. Moreover, the ranking method and the critical differences were used to find out the best treatment and to determine the significance between the treatments at the end of the storage. period. The results indicated that the best treatments were B followed by D. On the whole, treatment of the dressed bolti fish (during salting step) by adding sodium ascorbate 0.2% and coating the salted sun-dried fish by forming a film of gum arabic were suggested for better keeping quality and extending the shelf-life of salted sun-dried bolti fish.