The quality of spent hen chicken sausage with the addition of tomato paste (Solanum lycopersicum) as natural food colorant

Spent hen chicken meat are a meat that from 70 weeks old chicken that usually has a hard texture so further processing are needed to improve the quality. Spent hen chicken meat can be processed as sausage but chicken sausage usually have a pale color. Tomato have a natural coloring agent namely lycopene. Tomato paste can be used as a coloring agent and improve the quality of chicken sausage. The aim of this research was to determine the best percentage of tomato paste addition on chicken sausage based on physicochemical quality. The material used were spent hen chicken meat, tapioca, vegetable oil, tomato paste, seasoning, herbs and spices, skim milk, and ice cube. The research method is a laboratory experimental with a completely randomize design with 4 treatments and 4 replications. Tomato paste was added to sausage formulation 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% of the total ingredients used. The measured variables were L a∗b∗ color, cooking loss, water holding capacity, and moisture content. The results showed that the treatments gave very significant effect (P<0.01) on L a∗b∗ color, cooking loss, water holding capacity, and moisture content. Tomato paste addition on sausage can increase redness and yellowness but decrease lightness, increase cooking loss and moisture content, but decreased water holding capacity. It can be concluded that the best treatment on this reesearch was chicken sausage with 5% tomato paste.