Effect of Ultrasonic-assisted Quantitative Cooking on the Quality of Tea-flavored Stewed Beef

The effects of different ultrasonic powers (0, 600, 800, 1000 and 1200 W) assisted quantitative cooking on the quality of tea-flavored beef were investigated by monitoring the yield, color, texture, electronic nose, free amino acids and flavoring nucleotides. The results showed that ultrasound-assisted quantitative cooking could improve the yield of tea-flavored beef. The yield reached 80.77% and the textural characteristics also improved when treated with 800 W ultrasound power, but the a^* value and b^* value were not significantly affected (P>0.05). When the ultrasonic power was greater than 800 W, the a^* value and L^* value of stewed beef were significantly reduced, and the b^* value was significantly increased (P<0.05). In addition, the principal component analysis of the electronic nose showed differences in aroma flavour between ultrasonically treated and non-ultrasonically treated, and also had their own characteristics since among different ultrasonic power treatment groups. The content of glycine decreased first and then increased, and the content of arginine firstly increased and then decreased with the increase of ultrasonic power and had the maximum value at 1000 W. Ultrasonic treatment had a significant effect on the flavored nucleotide content of tea-flavored stewed beef (P<0.05), especially the inosine content reached a maximum at 800 W. Moreover, the sensory evaluation scores of the 800 W ultrasound-treated group were higher than those of the other groups. In summary, the favorable quality of the tea-flavored stewed beef was obtained at the ultrasonic power of 800 W.