LAUSR

BACKGROUND Rabbit meat is a good edible meat source with high nutritional values. Cooking has a significant impact on the edible properties, nutritional qualities and flavor characteristics of meat. Studying the effect of cooking methods on rabbit meat qualities could encourage more consumers understanding and accepting rabbit meat, and could also provide some reference for rabbit meat processing. Therefore, The effects of boiling (BRS), sous-vide cooking (SVRS), steaming (SRS), microwaving (MRS), roasting (RRS), frying (FRS) and pressure cooking (PRS) on the edible, nutritive and volatile qualities of rabbit meat were investigated. RESULTS The SVRS showed higher moisture content, water-holding capacity and lower cooking losses than other samples, but the results of RRS were the opposite, and scanning electron microscope observations also verified the results. There was no significant difference in 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances in the cooked samples except for the RRS. MRS, RRS and FRS exhibited stronger antioxidant activity than the other cooked samples after in vitro digestion. A total of 38 volatiles were identified in the cooked meat samples, and the samples were well divided into four groups by principal component analysis, and 13 volatiles were considered discriminatory variables for the cooked rabbit meat. CONCLUSION The physicochemical characteristics of cooked meat differed significantly between the processing methods. RRS meat showed lower TBARS value and stronger antioxidant activity after simulated digestion compared to the other meats. However, PRS meat detected the most volatile components while RRS at the least. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.