Evaluating the Feasibility of Ohmic Cooking for Home Meal Replacement Curry: Analysis of Energy Efficacy and Textural Qualities

The feasibility of ohmic heating was tested for cooking instant home meal replacement (HMR) curry mixture. A curry mixture (curry powder, spam, carrot, potato, and water) was ohmically heated to 100 °C using different electric fields (9, 12, 15, and 18 V/cm). Temperature come-up time to 100 °C of curry soup were 5.27 ± 0.63, 3.15 ± 0.39, 2.28 ± 0.19, and 1.67 ± 0.24 min at the electric fields of 9, 12, 15, and 18 V/cm, respectively. The come-up time was decreased as a function of enhanced electric fields (P < 0.05). In terms of energy efficacy, the highest electric field (18 V/cm) resulted in the most efficient system performance coefficient (SPC), with a score of 0.62. In terms of textural qualities, cooking at 15 V/cm of carrot and potato the hardness was 3.41 ± 0.69 N and 1.04 ± 0.18 N, respectively, that resulted in the ideal level of hardness. Our study proposed the positive feasibility of ohmic heating to cook HMR curry soup.