Sensory characteristics of native Muscovy duck meat in Malawi

Abstract

The current research was conducted to study the effect of production systems, cooking methods and post-mortem ageing time on the sensory attributes of duck meat. Breast muscles of drakes from three production systems (intensive, duck rice and free range) were collected after chilling at 4°C for 24 h. The determination of the effect of cooking methods and ageing time used duck breast muscles of drakes from the free range system which is the common production system in Malawi and was conducted after either one-hour and 12 h post-mortem ageing period by a trained taste panel. Sensory attributes evaluated were colour, tenderness and juiciness using a 9 point – Hedonic scale rating. Data were subjected to multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) for completely randomized design. The overall results indicated that the panellists preferred duck meat from duck-rice integration and free range system. Analysis of cooking methods, indicated a preference for grilling and ageing duck meat for 12 h rather than cooking after 1 h post-mortem. It is concluded that, ducks can be raised under duck-rice integrated systems as an improvement to free range system, provided that a 12 h post-mortem ageing period for better sensorial attributes of colour, tenderness and juiciness is maintained.