| 摘要 |
A process for peeling fresh citrus fruit to provide peeled whole fruit, with ease of peeling and with limited amounts of adhering albedo. The fresh citrus fruit are initially chilled to a temperature well below room temperature, preferably less than about 10 degrees C. The chilled fruit are then scored so as to penetrate the albedo layer, but not the underlying juice sections, and the scored fruit are then immersed in an aqueous solution of a pectinase enzyme at an initial temperature of about 35 degrees C. The enzyme solution is then infused into the fruit, and after holding the infusion-treated fruit in the solution for a prescribed time period, without application of additional heat, the peel can be readily removed from the whole fruit. Chilling the fruit before infusing the pectinase enzyme allows the core of the fruit to reach a temperature low enough to insure that the pectinase enzyme retains its full effectiveness only in the region of the peel and not at the membrane connecting together the segments of the fruit. This insures that the segments remain connected together, to provide peeled whole fruit. |
