Each treatment was divided into two equal portions, the first one was held overnight at 5 _C before freezing and the other portion was frozen directly. All treatments were frozen
by individual quick freezing (IQF) technique in a flow freeze air blast unit at _40 _C through 20 min. Each 500 g of frozen treatments were packaged in polyethylene bags and tightly
sealed. All frozen samples were stored at _18 _C for 12 month according to Egyptian Standard (ES 2368/2008). Physicochemical analysis of the frozen samples was conducted in a three replications after 24 h of thawing at 5 _C.