Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Optimization of microwave frying of potato slices

by using Taguchi technique
Mecit Halil Oztop, Serpil Sahin *, Gulum Sumnu
Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, 06531 Ankara, Turkey
Received 29 July 2005; accepted 15 January 2006
Available online 9 March 2006

Abstract
Use of microwave frying for food products may be considered as a new way of improving the quality of the fried foods. In this study,
the eects of microwaves on quality of fried potatoes (moisture content, oil absorption, color and hardness) were studied and the process
was optimized by using Taguchi Technique. Microwave power level (400 W, 550 W and 700 W), frying time (2.0, 2.5, 3.0 min) and oil type
(sunower, corn and hazelnut oil) were the parameters used in the study. Moisture content decreased whereas oil content, hardness and
color of potatoes increased with increasing frying time and microwave power level. The potatoes with the highest oil content were found
to be the ones that were fried in the hazelnut oil. The optimum condition was found as frying at 550 W microwave power level, for
2.5 min in sunower oil. At this condition, the oil content of fried potatoes was lower than that of conventionally fried ones.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Potato; Microwave frying; Taguchi technique

1. Introduction
Deep-fat frying can be dened as the process of drying
and cooking through contact with hot oil (Sahin, Sastry,
& Bayindirli, 1999). It is widely used in preparation of
foods, because the consumers prefer the taste, appearance
and texture of fried food products (Rimac-Brncic, Lelas,
Rade, & Simundic, 2004). It is important that the deepfat fried products should satisfy both health and sensory
aspects of the consumer demand. High heat transfer rates
are largely responsible for the development of desired sensorial properties in fried products (Hubbard & Farkas,
1999). Deep-fat fried products contain a substantial
amount of oil since foods with low fat content absorb large
amounts of oil during deep-fat frying. Oil absorption of the
food is aected by many factors including process conditions (temperature, time), pre-treatment of the food (such
as dehydration methods), physico-chemical characteristics
*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 312 210 56 27; fax: +90 312 210 12

70.
E-mail address: serp@metu.edu.tr (S. Sahin).
0260-8774/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2006.01.031

of food, oil origin, chemical composition of oil and others.

Longer times and lower frying temperatures usually lead to
higher nal oil contents in fried potato products (Saguy,
Ufheil, & Livings, 1998).
The most commonly used oil for frying is the sunower
oil due to its high smoke point. Corn oil may also be an alternative for sunower oil. In terms of fatty acid composition,
sunower oil contains around 4874% linoleic acid, whereas
that for corn oil is around 3465%. Linoleic acid is an essential multi-unsaturated fatty acid that cannot be synthesized
in the human body, therefore should be denitely consumed
externally, by food intake. Hazelnut oil is also known to be
very benecial for human health. It is one of the rare nutrients, which possess the two important fatty acidsoleic acid
and linoleic acidin its combination.
In the fatty acid composition of hazelnut oil, there is
around 7191% of oleic acid and at around 221% linoleic
acid. Oleic acid, which is a mono-unsaturated fatty acid,
reduces the risk of high blood pressure, ghts cholesterol
by reducing bad cholesterol, demonstrates preventive
impact on cardiovascular diseases, reduces insulin needs
of diabetes patients, and it has preventive power on cancer.

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M.H. Oztop et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

Use of microwave frying for food products may be considered as a new way of improving the quality of the fried
foods. Microwaves oer tremendous advantages in certain
food processing operations. Especially in food dehydration, microwaves accelerate the so-called falling rate period, which consequently reduces drying time signicantly.
However, there has not been much study on the use of
microwaves for the frying process.
When the food products are subjected to microwaves,
enhanced moisture loss due pressure driven ow is
observed (Feng & Tang, 1998). So the evaporation rate is
higher in microwave processing. This indicates that in
microwave frying, moisture loss will be higher and consequently oil absorption will be higher compared to conventional deep-fat frying. However, it is expected that the
frying process will take less time with the aid of microwaves
compared to conventional deep-fat frying which in turn
may lead to less oil absorption. So there is a trade o
between the high moisture loss and short frying time.
The experimental design technique of Genichi Taguchi
that was devised specically to improve the quality of Japanese manufactured goods in the post war period in conjunction with analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been
extremely successful. Originally applied in the eld of engineering, it can be used to optimize any complex process
(Dawson & Barnes, 1992). Taguchi design can determine
the eect of factors on characteristic properties and the
optimal conditions of factors. Orthogonal arrays and
ANOVA are used as the tools of analysis. ANOVA can
estimate the eect of a factor on the characteristic properties and experiment can be performed with the minimum
replication using the orthogonal arrays. Conventional statistical experimental design can determine the optimal condition on the basis of the measured values of the
characteristic properties while Taguchi method can determine the experimental condition having the least variability
as the optimal condition. The variability is expressed by
signal to noise (S/N) ratio. The experimental condition
having the maximum S/N ratio is considered as the optimal
condition as the variability characteristics is inversely proportional to the S/N ratio (Roy, 1990).
There is no scientic literature about microwave frying
and use of Taguchi Technique as an optimization method
for food processes. Therefore, the objective of this study
is to optimize the microwave frying of potato slices using
Taguchi Technique by considering the eects of microwave
power, oil type and frying time on quality parameters. In
addition, it was aimed to compare microwave frying with
conventional deep-fat frying.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Materials
Potatoes harvested from Nevsehir (Turkey) agricultural
region were used in the experiments.

2.1.1. Preparation of potato slices

Potatoes were peeled, washed and cut by using a manually operated cutting device into disc shaped slices of 5 mm
in thickness and 3.5 cm in diameter. The uniformity of
thickness of slices was checked using a caliper (Mitutoyo,
Japan). The slices were washed to remove free starch and
surface was blotted with a paper towel before frying. Three
dierent types of oil used in the study were sunower oil
_
_
lker, Istanbul),
(Bizim Yag, U
corn oil (Aymar, Istanbul)
and hazelnut oil (C
otanak, Ordu).
2.2. Methods
2.2.1. Frying
Microwave frying was conducted in a domestic microwave oven (Arcelik, Turkey). Three power levels, 400 W,
550 W, 700 W were used in the experiments. Power levels
were determined by IMPI 2-L test (Buer, 1993) Microwave frying was performed using a glass container containing 400 mL oil. First, the oil which is at room temperature
is heated to a temperature of 170 1 C at the maximum
power level of the microwave oven (800 W). Then, potato
slices were placed in hot oil and frying was performed at
a specied microwave power and time. Seven pieces of
potatoes were fried in each experiment. The oil was
replaced after frying in three dierent conditions.
In addition to oil type and microwave power level, a
third factor in the experimental design was the frying
time. The potatoes were fried for 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 min
respectively.
As control, conventional deep-fat frying was conducted
at a temperature of 170 1 C in commercial bench-top
deep-fat fryer (TEFAL, France) containing 400 mL sunower oil. Samples were fried for 4.5 min. In both microwave and conventional deep-fat frying potato/oil ratio
was kept the same at 0.0675 (w/v).
2.2.2. Orthogonal array and experimental parameters
For Taguchi design and subsequent analysis, the software named as Qualitek-4 (Version 4.82.0) was used.
The appropriate orthogonal array for the experiment
was determined by the software. Since the interactions
between the factors are also sought for, an L27 array
was chosen by the program. This means that 27 experiments with dierent combinations of the factors should
be conducted in order to study the main eects and interactions. It is important to note that the design is also a
full factorial design (33 = 27). However, in general, Taguchi design is preferred since it reduces the number of
experiments signicantly. But in this study, since it is
sought to observe all the interaction eects between the
factors as well, the resulting Taguchi design became a full
factorial design. Table 1 shows the 27 trial conditions to
be performed.
It is important to mention that the experiments were not
conducted in the order described in Table 1. To provide
randomness, the experiments were performed depending

M.H. Oztop et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

85

Table 1
Trial conditions according to Taguchi design
Exp. no.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
a

MW power
400
400
400
400
400
400
400
400
400
550
550
550
550
550

Frying time
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.5
2.5
2.5
3.0
3.0
3.0
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.5
2.5

Oil type
a

SF
Corn
Nut
SF
Corn
Nut
SF
Corn
Nut
SF
Corn
Nut
SF
Corn

Exp. no.

MW power

Frying time

Oil type

15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27

550
550
550
550
700
700
700
700
700
700
700
700
700

2.5
3.0
3.0
3.0
2.0
2.0
2.0
2.5
2.5
2.5
3.0
3.0
3.0

Nut
SF
Corn
Nut
SF
Corn
Nut
SF
Corn
Nut
SF
Corn
Nut

SF: sunower oil.

on the order determined by the software. Each experiment

was carried out twice in dierent times.
2.2.3. Measurement of temperature
Fiber optic temperature probes were placed at the center
of the potatoes and temperature readings were obtained
using a FISO real time measurement system (FISO Technologies, Inc, Quebec, Canada).
2.2.4. Viscosity measurement
The viscosities of the oils were measured with a rotational viscometer (Visco Elite-R, Fungilab, Spain)
equipped with the low viscosity adapter (LCP), which
had a Searle-type concentric cylinder conguration. The
sample was sheared at a constant shear rate of 50 rpm
for 5 min.
2.2.5. Analysis of fried samples
The fried samples were dried in a forced convection oven
at 105 C up to the establishment of constant weight for
moisture determination (AOAC, 1984).
The oil content of the fried samples was determined by
using Soxhlet extraction method with n-hexane for 6 hours
(AOAC, 1984).
Moisture content and oil content were calculated on %
dry basis.
Color of the fried samples was measured using a
Minolta color reader (CR-10, Japan). The color readings
were expressed by CIE coordinates (L*a*b*) system. L*,
a* and b* indicates whiteness/darkness, redness/greenness,
blueness/yellowness values, respectively. Total color dierence (DE) was calculated from the following equation
(Altunakar, Sahin, & Sumnu, 2004):
q
2
2
2
DE L  Lstandard a  astandard b  bstandard 
where, standard values referred to the BaSO4 plate
(L* = 96.9, a* = 0 and b* = 7.2). Triplicate readings were

carried out at room temperature at three dierent locations

of each sample and mean value was recorded.
Texture of the samples was determined in terms of hardness. Hardness of the potato samples were measured
15 min after frying, using a texture analyzer (Lloyd Instruments, TA Plus, Hants, UK) directly without any sample
preparation. A pin shaped probe was attached to the
instrument for the penetration test. The instrument was
set to a speed of 55 mm/min for penetration of the pin into
the fried sample. Hardness was dened as the peak force
for this penetration.
2.2.6. Statistical analysis and optimization
For each of the quality parameters three-way ANOVA
was conducted by using the statistical software program
MINITAB for Windows (Version 14) to nd out which
parameters are signicant for the specied quality parameter. Before conducting ANOVA, the assumptions for
ANOVA to be valid were checked. These assumptions
are normality and constant variance assumptions of the
residuals, respectively. The normality assumption was
checked by AndersonDarling test. The constant variance
assumption was checked by Bartletts test. If normality
assumption is not satised for residuals, transformation is
performed to normalize data. When signicant dierence
is found between dierent levels of the parameters, the
treatments were compared using Tukeys test (p < 0.05).
For the optimization, the software, Qualitek-4 (Version
4.82.0), which is designed for Taguchi experiments, was
used. When a product or process under study is to satisfy
more than one objective, performance of samples tested
for each trial condition are evaluated by multiple criteria
of evaluation. Such evaluations can be combined into a single quality, the overall evaluation criterion (OEC) that is
considered for the sample. But the evaluation of each individual criterion may have dierent units of measure, quality characteristics and relative weighting. In order to
combine dierent criteria they must be rst normalized

86

M.H. Oztop et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

and weighted accordingly (Roy, 2001). In this study, there

were four criteria, which were moisture content, oil content, color and texture respectively. For optimization these
four criterias quality characteristics, best and worst values
should be determined and be assigned a relative weighting
for the parameters depending on the importance of that
parameter in consumers mind. The quality characteristics
can be of three types: The Larger the Better, The Smaller
the better, The Nominal the best.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Moisture content
The initial moisture content of potatoes was in the range
of 8082% on wet basis (449.1% db on average). It was
observed that moisture loss of fried potatoes increased as
power level and frying time increased for all types of oils
(Figs. 13).
When ANOVA was performed, it was seen that the
assumptions of normality and constant variance failed.

Fig. 1. Variation of moisture content of potatoes fried in sunower oil

with dierent microwave power levels: () 400 W; (j) 550 W; (m) 700 W.

Fig. 2. Variation of moisture content of fried potatoes fried in corn oil

with dierent microwave power levels: () 400 W; (j) 550 W; (m) 700 W.

Fig. 3. Variation of moisture content of potatoes fried in hazelnut oil with

dierent microwave power levels: () 400 W; (j) 550 W; (m) 700 W.

Therefore, BoxCox transformation which is a power

transformation (yk) was employed. As a result of the transformation, the power (k) for the moisture content data was
found to be 0.29. The transformed form of the moisture
content data satised the assumptions. In ANOVA and
further optimization studies Moisture Content0.29 values
were used.
According to Tukey test, there was signicant dierence
between levels of microwave power and frying time in
terms of moisture content. The lowest moisture content
was obtained when potatoes were fried at the highest
microwave power level (700 W) for the longest frying time
(3.0 min) for all oil types. The moisture content of potatoes
fried in microwave oven even at low power level (400 W)
for 3 min were lower for all types of oils (52.89%,
59.56%, 64.55% when sunower, corn and hazelnut oil
were used as a frying medium, respectively) as compared
to those fried conventionally (67.44%). The resulting dierence between conventional deep-fat frying and microwave
frying is expected since microwaves enhance moisture loss
signicantly. Various researchers have shown that microwave dried vegetables lost more moisture than conventionally dried ones (Sharma & Prasad, 2001; Sumnu, Turabi, &
Oztop, 2005).
When the ANOVA results in Table 2 were examined, it
was seen that the most signicant main factors on aecting
moisture content were microwave power and frying time
(p < 0.05). The oil type was found to be insignicant on
aecting moisture content (p > 0.05). This may be
explained by the similarity of the dielectric properties of
sunower, corn and hazelnut oils. Since the dielectric properties are known to aect the heating rate in the microwave
oven, potatoes fried in dierent oils may have been heated
and lost moisture at the same rate. The similarity between
temperature proles of potatoes during frying supports this
idea (Fig. 4). The cycling of temperatures seen in Fig. 4 is
due to the on-o cycling of microwaves. In terms of interactions between the factors, microwave powerfrying time
and microwave poweroil type interactions and frying

M.H. Oztop et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

87

Table 2
Analysis of variance results (p values)
Source
MW power
Frying time
Oil type
MW power frying time
MW power oil type
Frying time oil type
MW power frying time oil type
Error
Total

d.f.
2
2
2
4
4
4
8

Moisture content (%)

Oil content (%)

Color (DE)

Hardness (N)

0.000
0.000
0.134
0.003
0.000
0.000
0.005

0.000
0.000
0.000
0.737
0.103
0.217
0.611

0.001
0.000
0.038
0.747
0.031
0.426
0.999

0.000
0.000
0.000
0.019
0.005
0.517
0.000

27
53

Fig. 4. Variation of temperature near center of potatoes fried at the 550 W

microwave power level in dierent oil types. () sunower oil; ( ) corn oil;
() hazelnut oil.

timeoil type interactions were found to be signicant

(p < 0.05) (Table 2). The three-way interactions of the factors were also found to be signicant.
3.2. Oil content
Oil content is one of the most important quality attributes of a deep-fat fried product. The texture of a lowoil-content product can be soft and unpleasant. However,
the high oil content is costly to the processor and results
in an oily and tasteless product (Moreira, Castell-Perez,
& Barrufet, 1999).
Fig. 5 shows the eects of oil types on oil contents of
potatoes fried at 550 W microwave power level. Potatoes
fried in the hazelnut oil had signicantly higher oil content
than the ones fried in sunower and corn oils (p < 0.05).
The same results were obtained in the other power levels
as well. Therefore, it can be concluded that the potatoes
fried in hazelnut oil are far away from satisfying consumers needs in terms of its high calorie.
In order to investigate whether the mechanism of microwave or the properties of hazelnut oil was responsible for
higher oil content of fried potatoes, conventional deep-fat
frying was also conducted for corn and hazelnut oils as
well. The oil contents of potatoes were found as 41.28%,

Fig. 5. Variation of oil content of potatoes fried at the 550 W microwave

power level in dierent oils. () sunower oil; (j) corn oil; (m) hazelnut
oil.

37.22%, and 71.82% for sunower, corn and hazelnut oil,

respectively. Since oil content of potatoes fried in hazelnut
oil were higher than the ones fried in other oil types in conventional fryer also, it was concluded that microwave eect
was not responsible for causing higher oil contents in potatoes fried in hazelnut oil.
Gamble, Rice, and Selman (1987) suggested that most of
the oil enters the nal product from the adhered oil being
pulled into the product when it is removed from the fryer
due to condensation of steam producing vacuum. Moreira,
Sun, and Chen (1997) also observed that only 36% of the
nal oil content was absorbed by the tortilla chips during
frying and 64% during cooling leaving only 36% at the
chips surface. It was also observed that the higher viscosity
of oil could cause the oil to adhere to the products surface
(Moreira et al., 1997). Therefore, the viscosities of the sunower, corn and hazelnut oils were measured and found to
be 42.67 cP, 43.72 cP and 54.94 cP at room temperature,
respectively. According to this result, the higher oil contents of potatoes fried in hazelnut oil may be explained
by more accumulated oil at the surface due to its high
viscosity.
Figs. 68, show how oil content changes with respect
to frying time and microwave power levels, for dierent

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M.H. Oztop et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

Fig. 6. Variation of oil content of potatoes fried in sunower oil with

dierent microwave power levels: () 400 W; (j) 550 W; (m) 700 W.

Fig. 7. Variation of oil content of potatoes fried in corn oil with dierent
microwave power levels: () 400 W; (j) 550 W; (m) 700 W.

frying, foods with more moisture loss also show more

oil uptake. Some even argue that the total volume of
oil uptake will be equal to the total volume of water
removed (Pinthus, Weinberg, & Saguy, 1993). Since
microwave frying resulted in high moisture loss even at
low power levels, it is expected that microwave frying will
cause higher oil uptake as compared to conventional
frying. However, the oil content of potatoes fried in
microwave oven for all microwave powers were lower
than the oil content of potatoes fried conventionally
when sunower oil or corn oil was used (Figs. 6 and
7). The short frying time may be responsible for this
result. This may also be explained by the high evaporation rate of water compared to diusion of oil. When
hazelnut oil was used, the situation was dierent especially at higher frying times and power levels.
Since the assumption of normality and constant variance were not satised for oil content, BoxCox transformation was employed and k value for the oil content
data was found to be 0.23. In ANOVA and further optimization studies, Oil Content0.23 values were used.
When the ANOVA results in Table 2 were examined, it
was seen that microwave power level, frying time and oil
type are all signicant on aecting the oil content (p <
0.05). However, all two-way interactions and the threeway interaction were found to be insignicant (p > 0.05).
It is very well known that there is an inverse relationship
between moisture and oil contents. While the moisture is
evaporated, oil enters the product during frying. However,
the eect of oil type on oil content was found to be significant while this was not the case in moisture content. For
conventional frying, the oil type was found to be insignicant on moisture content as well (p < 0.05). This also
explains that the most of the oil uptake occurred during
cooling.
3.3. Color

Fig. 8. Variation of oil content of potatoes fried in hazelnut oil with

dierent microwave power levels: () 400 W; (j) 550 W; (m) 700 W.

oil types. It is common for all of the oil types that as

microwave power level and frying time increased the oil
content of the fried samples increased. In conventional

Color is an important factor inuencing consumer

acceptance of a fried product. It can indicate high-quality
products such as the golden yellow of a potato. The consumer generally uses the color of a product in order to
determine the end of the frying process. The nal color
of the fried product depends on the absorption of oil and
the chemical reactions of browning of reducing sugars
and protein sources (Baixauli, Salvador, Fiszman, &
Calvo, 2002).
The total color dierence (DE) of potatoes increased as
microwave power level and frying time increased (Fig. 9).
As microwave power level increases the temperature of
the frying oil increases, which in turn increases the rate
of non-enzymatic browning reactions. Consequently the
color of potatoes becomes darker.
According to ANOVA results for the DE values, it was
seen that microwave power level, frying time and oil type
are all signicant in total color dierence (p < 0.05) (Table
2). Among the interactions, except the microwave power

M.H. Oztop et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

89

Fig. 9. Variation of total color dierence (DE) of the potatoes during

frying at dierent microwave power levels and oil types. (j) 700 W
sunower oil; (m) 700 Wcorn oil; (d), 700 Wnut oil; (h) 550
Wsunower oil; (n), 550 Wcorn oil; (s), 550 Wnut oil; ( )
400 Wsunower oil; () 400 Wcorn oil; (+) 400 Wnut oil.

Fig. 10. Variation of hardness of the potatoes during frying at dierent

microwave power levels and oil types. (j) 700 Wsunower oil; (m)
700 Wcorn oil; (d), 700 Wnut oil; (h) 550 Wsunower oil; (n),
550 Wcorn oil; (s), 550 Wnut oil; ( ) 400 Wsunower oil; ()
400 Wcorn oil; (+) 400 Wnut oil.

oil type interaction, the other two-way interactions and

three-way interactions were found to be insignicant
(p > 0.05). There were no signicant dierence between
corn and sunower whereas there is signicant dierence
between hazelnut oil and other oil types in terms of DE
according to Tukey test (p < 0.05).

the frying timeoil type interaction, all other interactions

were found to be signicant (p < 0.05). Tukey test for the
parameters showed that the levels of the three parameters
were signicantly dierent from each other. The potatoes
fried in the sunower oil were found to be the hardest ones,
which were followed by the potatoes fried in hazelnut and
corn oil, respectively.

3.4. Texture analysis

3.5. Optimization
The eects of dierent microwave power levels and different oil types on the texture of fried potatoes were examined in terms of hardness. In Fig. 10, it can be seen that the
hardness values increased with increasing frying time and
microwave power level since as frying time and microwave
power level increased, the moisture content decreased
which resulted in harder products.
The hardness data were also far away from satisfying
the assumption of normality Therefore, transformation
was performed to normalize the hardness results. Natural
logarithm transformation satised the normality. In
ANOVA and in optimization, natural logarithms of the
hardness values were used. The ANOVA results for hardness data are also given in Table 2. The microwave power
level, frying time and oil type were all found to be signicant for the hardness of the potatoes (p < 0.05). Except

The overall evaluation criteria were calculated by the

software depending on the specied quality characteristics
and relative weights that are given in Table 3. The optimum condition was found to be the medium microwave
power level 550 W, 2.50 min frying time and the sunower
oil.
The worst readings in Table 3 denote the worst results
that are obtained in the experiments. The values for moisture content, oil content and hardness are their transformed forms. Moisture content, color and hardness have
The Nominal the best quality characteristics. The nominal values were based on the conventionally fried potatoes.
For oil content, since consumers prefer less oil content
products smaller is the better quality characteristics
was chosen. However, since BoxCox transformation

Table 3
Evaluation criteria description
Criterion

Worst reading

Best reading

Quality characteristic

Weighting (%)

Moisture content (%)

Oil content (%)
Color (DE)
Hardness (N)

1.811
0.355
55.29
0.0929

3.391
0.586
49.075
2.49262

Na
Bb
N
N

10
40
30
20

a
b

The Nominal the best quality characteristic.

Bigger is the better quality characteristic.

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M.H. Oztop et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 79 (2007) 8391

Table 4
Analysis of variance for the overall evaluation criteria
Source

d.f

Sum of sqrs. (S)

Variance (V)

F ratio

Pure sum (S 0 )

MW power
Frying time
MW power frying time
MW power frying time
Oil type
MW power oil type
MW power oil type
Oil type frying time
Oil type frying time

2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
(2)

562.949
1207.817
1781.136
926.996
3441.097
(91.083)
(181.158)
830.015
(72.607)

281.474
603.908
19.97
468.498
1720.548

3.612
7.751
18.84
5.949
22.084
Pooled
Pooled
5.326
Pooled

407.135
10052.03
37.81
771.182
3285.283

3.443
8.898
19.52
6.523
27.79

674.201

5.703

Other/error
Total

41
53

3071.591
193.7

Table 5
Comparison of the quality of fried potatoes fried in optimum condition
for microwave frying (550 W, 2.5 min, sunower oil) and conventional
deep-fat frying in sunower oil
Quality
parameters

Microwave
frying

Conventional
deep-fat frying

Moisture content (% db)

Oil content (% db)
DE
Hardness (N)

42.04
27.40
45.51
1.51

67.44
41.28
49.075
1.637

required a negative power, instead of smaller is the better

bigger is the better quality characteristics was chosen.
The relative weightings of the parameters were determined
by the group consensus.
The ANOVA results for the overall evaluation criteria
(OEC) are given in Table 4. According to ANOVA results
for the OEC, oil type is the most signicant factor followed
by microwave power level-frying time interaction, frying
time, respectively.
Table 5 shows the values for the quality parameters
obtained in the optimum condition of microwave frying
process and conventional deep-fat frying. It should be mentioned that the microwave-fried potatoes had lower oil content than the conventionally fried ones.
4. Conclusion
It was possible to obtain fried potatoes with microwave,
having similar color and hardness values to that of conventionally fried ones. Although microwave frying decreased
frying time and oil uptake signicantly, microwave fried
potatoes had more moisture loss as compared to conventionally fried ones. Oil content was smaller in microwave
fried potatoes when sunower or corn oils were used.
Higher oil content was observed in the case of both microwave and conventionally fried potatoes when hazelnut oil
was used a frying medium. Moisture content decreased
but color, hardness and oil content of potatoes increased
as frying time and microwave power increased. Microwave

415.007
74.916

Percent (P%)

33.895
100

power, frying time and oil type were found to be signicant

factors on aecting oil content, texture and color of microwave fried potatoes. There was no signicant dierence
between oil types on aecting moisture content of potatoes
during frying.
It was concluded that Taguchi technique could be a
good way for optimization of microwave frying. It can be
recommended to be used in other food processes as well.
As another recommendation, the eect of microwave frying on acrylamide content can be studied in a further
research.
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