The Role of Chicken Fat

Chicken fat is a key ingredient in our new product, adding both flavor and function. It enhances taste, improves texture, and provides nutritional benefits. Its rich, savory flavor comes from natural fatty acids and volatile compounds. It also makes the product softer, juicier, and more tender qualities that matter to our consumers. Heat changes the melting point and thickness of chicken fat, which affects both texture and flavor. This makes it useful for achieving the right mouthfeel and consistency. Nutritionally, chicken fat provides essential omega-6 fatty acids like linoleic acid and fat-soluble vitamins. Our bodies break down fat using enzymes called lipases, which turn it into smaller parts that can be absorbed. One of the biggest reasons we use chicken fat is its role as a binder. It helps hold the product together by forming stable emulsions and interacting with proteins to create a smooth, uniform structure. Small, even fat droplets coat ingredients better and help keep everything mixed. Though fat and water don’t naturally combine, proteins act as emulsifiers, surrounding the fat droplets and preventing them from clumping. During cooking, proteins denature and form a network, and chicken fat supports this by helping create a stable structure. This binding effect is essential for maintaining texture and shape during cooking. Overall, chicken fat plays a major role in flavor, tenderness, and holding our product together.

The Role of Starch

In our product, starch acts as both a binder and emulsifier by absorbing water and forming a gel-like structure through gelatinization. This gel helps stabilize emulsions by preventing oil and water from separating and improves the viscosity of the meat, helping it hold together. When starch is heated in water, its granules swell and absorb moisture, breaking down their crystalline structure to form a thick paste that binds water and other ingredients. During this process, amylose is released into the water, boosting viscosity and binding, while amylopectin hydrates to further strengthen the structure. Starch also helps create and stabilize oil-in-water emulsions by forming a thickened continuous phase and preventing oil droplets from merging. Its ability to build a stable network within the mixture helps maintain the product’s texture and structure during cooking. As noted by Egharevba (2020), starch is a versatile biomaterial widely used across industries thanks to its unique functional properties. In our product, it plays a key role in holding everything together, improving texture, and ensuring a consistent, stable final product.

 

Source:

Omoregie Egharevba, Henry. ‘Chemical Properties of Starch and Its Application in the Food Industry’. Chemical Properties of Starch, IntechOpen, 11 Mar. 2020. Crossref, doi:10.5772/intechopen.87777.

The Role of Salt

Salt is a key ingredient in our product and serves several important roles. One of its main functions is helping proteins—especially myosin—dissolve in water so they can form a gel-like structure. Without salt, these proteins wouldn’t dissolve well at low levels of ionic strength, which would make it harder for the gel to form. Salt works by attaching to charged parts of the protein, breaking bonds that hold the protein together, and allowing it to unfold and interact more easily with water. This unfolding is necessary for the proteins to link together and create a stable network. Myosin heads stick together through disulfide bonds, while the tails come together through water-repelling (hydrophobic) interactions, helping build the gel. In our product, we use just under 2% salt—within the ideal range of 0.5% to 2%—to make sure the proteins dissolve and unfold properly. Adding too much salt can mess up the protein structure and negatively affect the taste by making it too salty. Salt is self-limiting by taste because too much salt added to a product will make the taste undesirable. It is important to use the correct amount of salt to not negatively impact the flavor and functionality of our product. Overall, salt is essential for the proper protein solubility, and getting the right texture and structure in our product, while keeping the flavor balanced.

The Role of Chicken Broth

We use chicken broth to help give the product more of a “chicken” flavor while also decreasing yield loss from grinding and cooking. Chicken broth contains essential chicken fats, proteins, and savory compounds that intensify the natural chicken taste of our product. When chicken broth is added during grinding, it infuses the mixture, improving and increasing the overall chicken flavor. The most important reason for using chicken broth is for moisture retention. When grinding chicken meat, some moisture is lost. Adding chicken broth can help retain moisture in the meat, reducing the amount that evaporates during cooking. This keeps the product juicy and prevents it from becoming too dry or tough. Overall, the chicken broth we add in our product improves both flavor and yield by enhancing the taste profile of the chicken while also aiding in moisture retention and protein binding, making our end-product more flavorful and less prone to drying out or shrinking during processing.