Puffed corn-fish snack development by extrusion technology

A thermoplastically extruded snack was produced from different blends of corn grits and silver carp minced meat. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to study the effect of fish meat content and to optimize the feed composition. Fourteen treatments from central composite design considering minced fish content (0-3 kg) and corn (7-10 kg) were used as the independent variables. The expansion ratio, protein content, fish odour, and overall acceptability were the dependent variables. Fish odour, linear distance and protein content of puffed corn-fish snack increased significantly with fish content while the expansion ratio significantly decreased (p < 0.05). The optimum formulation was obtained at 15% of minced fish.