Abstract
woods such as Anthonata mycrophylla and Dialium guinensis were studied. Thirty catfishes weighing 475 ± 50 g were harvested, killed, eviscerated and rinsed thoroughly under tap water and were divided into 3 batches of ten fishes and were immersed in 10% brine solution for 30 min. Each batch was smoked for 4 h with woods’ smoke of A. mycrophylla, D. guinensis and gas oven, respectively. The oven dried sample served as control. The smoked catfish were allowed to cool at room temperature and samples were taken from each batch, respectively for proximate composition analysis. Nevertheless, the remaining smoked fish products were labeled/coded and subjected to sensory evaluation by trained test panel on ten point hedonic scale. Results of the sensory evaluation obtained reveal that there was no significant difference (P > 0.05) among the sensory parameters except the flavour; however, the proximate analyses revealed that fish samples smoked with woods had higher scores for ash than oven dried fish (P < 0.05). Nevertheless, the crude fat (25.46%) of oven dried sample is higher than those recorded for samples smoked with woods (P < 0.05). These results show that these woods could be suitable for fish smoking without negative effects on nutrients and sensory qualities for consumer
acceptability.
Key words: Assessment, nutrients, sensory qualities, catfish, wood smoke
