Abstract/Summary

There is no published work on the most important aroma compounds in sweet potato fries, a food increasing in popularity. Fries from the variety Beauregard, both with and without a carbohydrate-based coating, were par-fried and then frozen. Sweet potato fries were prepared by deep frying the part-cooked fries from frozen at 175°C for 140 s in rape seed (canola) oil. The freshly cooked fries were frozen in liquid nitrogen and ground to a coarse powder. Ground samples were shaken with dichloromethane and then extracted using solvent-assisted flavour evaporation, to provide concentrated aroma extracts, which were then analysed. GC-MS used alongside aroma extract dilution analysis showed that Strecker aldehydes and lipid breakdown products were important components of sweet potato fry aroma