Red meat and poultry surimi

The successful development of the fish surimi process and increasing market share of surimi-based fish products throughout the world have led to studies aimed at applying the surimi process to red meat and poultry. The potential exists for the surimi process to be used to upgrade meat byproducts (e.g. MSM, trimmings and offals) for further processing. 

In the traditional process for fish surimi production, the fish flesh is washed on large screens and the oil is washed through the screens. This process is suitable for the separation of the liquid oil from fish however, solid fats (such as occur in red meat) would not separate in this way but would remain on the screens with the water-insoluble proteins. Red meat also contains higher levels of fat than white fish. Fat separation from meat is therefore more difficult than from fish. Separation can be carried out using flotation and skimming however, this introduces further steps into the process and increases processing times. 

Increases in protein content were observed for surimi prepared from all meats examined, except heart and tongue. The levels of salt-soluble pro- 

Meat surimi was generally darker than commercial fish surimi, and this was attributed to the greater level of pigment present in the raw material. The gel strength of the beef and pork surimi was lower than that of fish surimi below 50°C, but significantly higher at temperatures greater than 80 C. The authors concluded that surimi-like material from beef, pork and by-products had textural properties similar to or better than those of commercial fish surimi, and that beef hearts were the most viable byproduct, of those studied, for surimi manufacture. 

Workers in New Zealand have developed a process for the preparation of surimi from mutton (Torley et al., 1988). The chief problem they encountered was that sheep meat contained a high level of collagen (21%), compared with that of fish flesh (3%). To counter this problem extensive comminution of the mutton, to break down the collagen, was carried out prior to water-washing. 

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Knight, M.K., Choo, B.K., Crosland, A.R., Jolley, P.D. and Wood, J.M. (1989) Red meat and poultry surimi production. Leatherhead Food R.A. Project Y078IM060 report (Part ) ... 

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