This study investigated the quality characteristics of sweet pumpkin after blanching. Sweet pumpkins were blanched in distilled water, 2% citric acid and 2% NaCl water at 100oC for 3 min. The cooking loss of sweet pumpkin in the blanching groups was lower than that in the control group, and greenness and yellowness in the blanching groups were higher than those in the control group (p<0.001). Total polyphenol content (TPC) of sweet pumpkin increased after blanching (p<0.05), and TPC true retention (TR) was measured with the highest NB. CON and NB were significantly higher in ?- carotene content (p<0.001). Lutein content in the blanching treatment groups was lower than that in the control group, but NB was the highest between the blanching groups (p<0.001). DPPH and ABTS+ radical scavenging activity assays revealed higher antioxidant activity in the NB groups among the blanching groups (p<0.001). The CON was 2.44 log colonyforming unit (CFU)/ g in the total bacterial count, but there were no microorganisms in the blanching groups. In conclusion, blanching with the addition of 2% NaCl can inhibit the growth of microorganisms and improve TR and antioxidant activities in sweet pumpkin.

This study sought to investigate the effects of heat-moisture treatment (HMT) and ethanol treatment (EOH) for improving the quality and storage stability of Tteokbokki Tteok. The quality characteristics were evaluated by moisture, pH, color, texture profile analysis, and observing the microbial properties after the heat-moisture treatment or ethanol treatment. As the storage period increased, the moisture content of Tteokbokki Tteok tended to decrease except for the HMT group (p<0.05) while the pH did not show significant variation except for the EOH group (p<0.05). While measuring the color, the L-value tended to increase in all groups during the storage period. The a-value and the b-value showed the highest values in the HMT group and the control (CON) group, respectively. In the texture profile analysis, all groups showed a significant tendency to increase levels of hardness and chewiness as the storage period increased (p<0.05). The HMT group showed an increase in hardness and adhesiveness, which are characteristics of the HMT treatment. The results of examining the microbial properties of Tteokbokki Tteok showed that the total microbial count in the HMT group was 4.52 on the 8th day of storage, which was lower than the level in the CON group and the EOH group on the 4th day of storage. Yeast and mold were not measured during the storage period. Thus the results of this study showed that when manufacturing Tteokbokki Tteok, the heat-moisture treatment of rice powder increased the storage stability by delaying microbial growth and also had positive effects on quality.