Gelation of salted paste of Alaska pollack by high hydrostatic pressure and change in myofibrillar protein in it

Frozen surimi of Alaska pollack was ground with 2.5% NaCl and treated by a high hydrostatic pressure. Strong gel was formed from the salted paste by treatment at 2.0-4.0kbar at 0°C for 10min. The gel by 3.0kbar pressure treatment had the greatest gel strength. The high pressure-induced gel was different from the heat-induced gel in its property. It had greater gel strength and is more transparent in the appearance compared with the heat-induced gel. The high pressure-induced gel had a small amount of myosin heavy chain and concomitantly a large amount of high molecular weight components. Furthermore, it also had a large amount of Cl component which was not solubilized with SDS-urea-mercaptoethanol medium, whereas the heat-induced gel had no such component. These findings suggest that gel-formation by a high pressure depend largely on the cross-linking of myosin heavy chain. These results indicated that gelation of meat paste induced by a high pressure may be advantageous to processing of a new type fabricated food from fish meat.