Vol. 6, Issue 7 (2017)

Author(s):
Rumeesa Mahmood, Sahjanand Thakur, Rekha Rani, Bhopal Singh and Ramesh Chandra

Abstract:
Vegetables are important food group for Indians. Vegetable food group contributes indigestible fibre, vitamin and minerals such as calcium and Iron. It is also low in fat and has low calorific value. They are beneficial in maintaining acid-alkaline balance in body and thus can help to reduce the role of medicine for better of health. Bottle gourd is very useful for relief in urinary disorders. In cooked form, it is diuretic, sedative and antibilios. Tomato is the richest source of nutrients, dietary fibers antioxidant like lycopene and beta-carotene and the compounds that protect cells from cancer. Sauce from the blend of bottlegourd and tomato was prepared using different treatments (i.e. 50-50, 60-40, 70-30 and 80-20 as T₁, T₂, T₃ and T₄ respectively). The sample was analyzed for various sensorial (colour and appearance, consistency, flavor and overall acceptability), physic-chemical (total soluble solids, pH, acidity, moisture, ash, antioxidant, protein, vitamin C, fat) and microbial counts (standard plate count (SPC), yeast and moulds and coliforms). Physico-chemical analysis (total soluble solids, pH, acidity, moisture, ash, antioxidant, protein, vitamin C, fat) revealed that the sample T₁ differed significantly (P<0.05). The sensory evaluation (colour and appearance, consistency, flavor and overall acceptability) showed that the scores were highest in treatment T₁. It was observed that the good quality of sauce can be prepared by using bottlegourd and tomato in the ratio of 50:50. The anti-oxidant inhibition activity was found 78.32±0.18 % and Vitamin C was 29.3±0.21 mg/ml in optimized product T1. In the microbiological analysis, it was found that the SPC (10³cfu/ml) was lowest in T₁ while the yeast and moulds and coliforms count are found absent in all four treatments.