The variation of moisture as well as oil content
during frying of ribbon snacks dried for different
durations (from 0 to 90 min) is shown in Fig. 5a,b.
During frying, the moisture content of the fried
product decreased and oil content increased rapidly
up to 45 s beyondwhic h very little changes were
seen. Drying of ribbons up to 40 min resultedin a
decrease in equilibrium moisture and oil content
during frying. However, after 60 min of drying the
variation in moisture as well as oil content were
marginal (Fig. 5b). A possible reason for the reduction
in oil content during frying due to pre-fry drying could
be compactness of the material matrix or increase in the
solidcon tent (Krokida et al., 2000). Final oil content
and residual moisture content during deep fat frying at
1751C of pre-fry dried sample for different times is
shown in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the final oil content
andresid ual moisture content are very much related
with each other, for all pre-fry drying times. As the
moisture content of the product is decreased during
frying, it resultedin an increase in an oil content. These
results are in agreement with those reported