The effects of different flour types on the texture of
deep-fat fried chicken nuggets were examined in terms
of fracturability in Fig. 4. In general, fracturability,
which is a good indicator of crispiness increased with
increasing frying time. The improvement in texture
development of fried products was statistically signifi-
cant when soy flour was used. The fracturability of the
nuggets prepared with soy flour containing batter was
higher especially at 12 min of frying which can be considered
as the optimum frying time for an acceptable
product.This may be related to the high protein content
of soy flour, which improves its film forming ability.
Together with the film forming property of soy flour
containing batter, its higher viscosity increased batter
pick-up and enhanced the formation of a hard and crisp
crust during frying. Lack of adequate viscosity of rice
flour containing batter to coat the food may be responsible
for lower fracturability. Lower texture values were
also obtained when less than 5% rice flour was added to
the batter formulation