Application of composite salt keeps flavor of dry-cured duck and reduce additive amount of sodium salt

Abstract: Currently, the consumption of cured meat products is not suitable for hypertensive consumers due to its high content of sodium, which significantly restricts the sales and progress of this kind of meat variety. Therefore, it is very necessary to develop of a new mixed salt with low sodium that does not change the flavor of cured meat products. Actually, the partial replacement of sodium chloride by potassium chloride, calcium chloride, and calcium lactate has been proposed as a possible strategy to reduce the sodium content of meat products.This experiment was performed to study the effects of partial replacement of sodium chloride by using potassium chloride, calcium chloride, and calcium lactate on the textural properties and sensory quality of dry-cured duck. Based on the single factor tests for potassium chloride, calcium chloride, and calcium lactate, the Box-Behnken response surface methodology was applied to optimize the percentages of the replacement, and two quadratic polynomial mathematical models about textural properties and sensory quality were built. The results showed that, in the potassium chloride single factor experiment, with the substitution increasing, potassium chloride addition had a markedly negative effect on the taste (P<0.05), but had no significant effect on the texture of the products (P>0.05) and the highest substitution percentage was 25. In the calcium chloride single factor experiment, calcium chloride addition had a significant effect on the hardness and chewiness (P<0.05) but not the spring of products (P>0.05). While it had a significant effect on the sensory attributes of texture, aroma, taste, bitterness, and overall acceptability but not saltiness (P<0.05) and the highest substitution percentage of the calcium chloride was 10. In the single factor experiment of calcium lactate, it had a significant effect on the texture of hardness and chewiness and sensory evaluation of aroma, taste, saltiness, odor, and overall acceptability (P<0.05), but no significant effect on the spring or the texture (P<0.05). The substitution percentage of 15 of calcium lactate was the best suitable. The response surface model, with potassium chloride, calcium chloride, and calcium lactate as independent variables and textural properties and sensory quality as responses, was highly fitted (R12=0.9572；R22=0.9845). The textural properties of the dry-cured duck was significantly influenced by calcium chloride, calcium lactate, and calcium chloride × calcium lactate (P<0.01). While the sensory quality of the dry-cured duck was significantly influenced by potassium chloride, calcium chloride, calcium lactate, calcium chloride×calcium lactate (P<0.01), and calcium chloride × calcium lactate (P<0.05). Thus, the maximum replacement percentages of the sodium chloride by potassium chloride, calcium chloride, and calcium lactate were 21.30%, 11.93% and 11.12%, respectively. Compared with the control group, the chewiness was almost not changed, and overall acceptability was decreased slightly (but in the acceptable range) in the verification test. The relative error of chewiness and overall acceptability compared with the predicted value were 2.07% and 11.12%, respectively. Under such conditions, the concentration of sodium chloride being added to the dry-cured duck was decreased by 44.45% without changing the major eating attributes of the products. The results provide reference for the development of low salt meat products.