Effect of young and matured ginger (Zingiber officinale) marinates on tenderizing the buffalo meat / Nur Azmeera Ridzwan

The use of synthetic and non-natural products as meat tenderizer gives potential health problem and lasting side effects to human, thus the use of ginger as a natural meat tenderizer was proposed. A study was carried out to determine the effectiveness and potential effect of young and matured ginger (Zingiber officinale) marination treatment compared with commercialized meat tenderizers on the physicochemical attributes of buffalo meat. The buffalo meat chunks with uniform weigh were marinated with different concentration (20% and 47% v/w) of young and matured ginger extract, commercialized meat tenderizer (positive control), and 0% distilled water (negative control) for 24 hours at 4 ± 1ºC. The preserved samples were cooked for 20 minutes at 99ºC. Both raw and cooked meat samples were evaluated to physicochemical analysis. Treatment with 47% young ginger extract enhanced the cooking yield and significantly (p<0.05) decrease the hardness of the treated meat samples. Treatment with 47% young ginger extract increased significantly (p<0.05) for the moisture content of the cooked sample compared to matured ginger extract. TPA results shows the hardness for 47% young ginger extract treatment decreased significantly (p<0.05) in comparison with matured ginger. Sensory evaluation scores shown a significant (p<0.05) enhancement in tenderness, chewiness, and overall acceptability of young ginger treated samples compared to matured ginger and negative control. Based on the moisture content, TPA values and sensory evaluation, it can be suggested that 47% young ginger extract (Zingiber officinale) has the potentiality to be used as meat tenderizer.