Abstract:
Creating dried nutritious meal is an essential process, where such meal can be consumed during any emergency scenarios such as natural disasters, disease outbreak, or war. The dried rice ball meal (DRBM) was produced with brown rice as the main ingredient in this study. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of brown rice percentage (83.3%, 87.5%, and 90.0%) on the DRBM properties. The DRBM was prepared, shaped, and fried using an air-fryer. Physical analysis of the texture and colour of the DRBM was conducted. A chemical proximate analysis was carried out to determine the moisture content, ash, fat, protein, carbohydrate, and energy. Sensory evaluation by using the Hedonic scale was conducted with 50 panellists. The best result for physical and chemical characteristics were obtained from the sample of 87.5% brown rice and the sensory evaluation result demonstrated the values were not significantly different (p<0.05) compared to the highest score for all the sensory attributes obtained by the control sample. The sample of 87.5% DRBM had the best physicochemical properties according to the analyses conducted, with high acceptance rate by the panellists.