Acetic acid pretreatment improves the hardness of cooked potato slices.

The effects of acetic acid pretreatment on the texture of cooked potato slices were investigated in this work. Potato slices were pretreated with acetic acid immersion (AAI), distilled water immersion (DWI), or no immersion (NI). Subsequently, the cell wall material of the pretreated samples was isolated and fractioned to evaluate changes in the monosaccharide content and molar mass (MM), and the hardness and microscopic structure of the potato slices in different pretreatments before and after cooking were determined. The results showed that the highest firmness was obtained with more intact structure of the cell wall for cooked potato slices with AAI pretreatment. Furthermore, the MM and sugar ratio demonstrated that the AAI pretreated potato slices contained a higher content of the small molecular polysaccharides of cell walls, especially in the hemicellulose fraction. This work may provide a reference for potato processing.