ABSTRACT

 The comparative evaluation of beef and chicken meatballs produced by frying and oven drying processing methods was studied. Fresh chicken and beefmeats were processed into meatballs using frying and oven drying methods to obtain 4 samples. The meat samples were subjected to proximate, cholesterol, amino acid and texture profiles analyses using standard methods. The proximate composition ofthe meatball samples ranged from 12.45 to 22.87% moisture, 14.82 to 21.06% protein, 0.11 to 0.67% fiber, 4.86 to 9.92% fat, 2.14 to 2.68% ash, 45.66 to 62.62% carbohydrate, and 348.84 to 361.92 kcal energy value. The cholesterol content ranged from 51.37 to 79.64 mg/lOOg. The essential amino acid profile ranged from 4.72 to 9.04 g/lOOg leucine, 4.64 to 7.18 g/lOOg lysine, 3.21 to 3.73 g/lOOg isoleucine, 3.90 to 5.93 g/lOOg phenylalanine, 0.59 to 2.61 g/lOOg tryptophan, 0.84 to 4.27 g/lOOg valine, 1.23 to 5.38 g/lOOg methionine, 2.23 to 4.66 g/lOOg histidine, and 3.11 to 5.41 g/lOOg threonine. The non-essential amino acid profile ranged from 3.23 to 4.16 g/lOOg norleucine, 1.12 to 5.94 g/lOOg proline, 4.16 to 5.33 g/lOOg arginine, 2.41 to 5.08 g/lOOg tyrosine, 0.84 to 0.91 g/lOOg cystine, 1.73 to 4.02 g/lOOg alanine, 10.65 to 15.33 g/lOOg glutamic acid, 3.82 to 5.13 g/lOOg glycine, 2.83 to 3.81 g/lOOg serine, and 8.96 to 10.08 g/lOOg aspartic acid. The texture profile of the meatbail samples ranged from 1539.28 to 4247.64 N hardness, 0.90 to 0.94 springiness, 0.76 to 0.85 cohesiveness, 1229.83 to 3273.88 N gumminess, 1137.14 to 2958.96 N chewiness, and 0.35 to 0.48 resilience. The study concludes that oven-dried chicken meatballs offered the best balance of nutrition, healthfulness, and texture hence, the use of chicken and oven drying method should be adopted in meatball processing