Meat+Poultry - December 2019 - 72

INGREDIENT ISSUES

Fruit inclusions can be
added easily to meat
products, although
dried and semi-moist
bits are easier to work
with than fresh fruits.

ingredients to the final
product, just milk, salt,
culture and enzyme.
With natural cheese,
you get flavor and
mouthfeel, but melt
can be challenging, as
the cheese particulate
may lose its identity in
the final cooked meat
product. Restricted-melt
processed cheese and
no- and low-melt natural
cheeses, such as feta, halloumi, queso blanco
and paneer, simply get creamier when
heated. They do not ooze and lose form the
way cheddar, mozzarella and Swiss do when
added to meat products.
When it comes to including fruits and vegetables, dried and semi-moist bits and pieces
are often the smartest choice. They may pull
some moisture from the meat matrix, but just
enough to become tender. They also don't
bleed as much as fresh fruits. These dried

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Gilbert's Craft Sausages

72

Booth B7218 at IPPE

versions are often infused with a humectant to keep them soft but prevent moisture
migration.
Unprocessed whole fruits can be quite challenging to work with, especially if the product
is intended to have a lengthy refrigerated shelf
life. They will leak moisture into the meat
matrix over time, creating mushy pockets in
the cooked product. When fresh fruit is used, it
is best to freeze the product immediately after
manufacture until it's ready for preparation
and serving.
Some suppliers offer carefully crafted
inclusions that can be manipulated to meet
varied sensory targets. For example, neutraltasting and colored apple may be formed into
a piece that then gets infused with the juice of
other fruits, such as blueberry. This allows for
a "made with real blueberry" claim, with both
apple and blueberry appearing in the ingredient statement.
Depending on the product positioning in
the marketplace, fabricated inclusions may
make the most economic and shelf life sense.
These are either lipid- or carbohydrate-based bits that are infused
with flavor, even trivial tastes like
ketchup, mustard and dill pickle.
Such inclusions come in a range
of sizes. Size influences flavor
distribution and visual effect in the
finished product.
Meat products with lipidbased inclusions have been
found to withstand pan frying,
baking and microwaving. Higher
sugar content inclusions can
undergo caramelization during
dry-heat cooking, which may
add an extra flavor dimension,
as in a maple inclusion for a
breakfast sausage.
Such inclusions can also
deliver smoke flavors, which add
a touch of grill flavor without
needing to grill. They may also be
used to introduce alcohol flavors,
such as beer, bourbon or wine. By
using such fabricated inclusions, a
processor can have one base meat
matrix recipe, and simply switch
up the inclusion for a new limitededition flavorful offering.
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Meat+Poultry - December 2019

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