Blog 2: Discover

    The main objective to be executed for this particular week was developing a sort of prototype for each of the product ideas that the team decided on. The set of experimental products that the team decided to test were fried boneless Buffalo wings, a build-your-own chicken taco kit that is ready to eat, and an Asian Thai chicken and noodle dish. The chicken meat that was used had severe woody breast myopathy.

     The first product that we tried our hands at was the fried boneless Buffalo wings. We started by grinding the chicken meat up, hoping to reduce the tough texture that the woody breast creates in the meat. After the meat was ground up, it was placed in the Kitchen Aid mixer where salt, seasoning, and xanthan gum were mixed into the meat. The salt and seasoning were mixed in the meat for flavor and the xanthan gum was added to stabilize the meat mixture. Once the meat was mixed, the team set up an assembly line to ready the wings for frying.

      We attempted to form the meat into wings, which was easier said than done,

because they basically ended up looking like tenders. Kent had a lot of trouble

forming the wings because they were sticking to his fingers and were not forming

correctly. He decided to rub his hands with flour to keep the meat from sticking

to his hands and then dip his fingers in water to clean particles off after each wing.

The said wings were rolled in pre-dust first, batter second, and bread crumbs third.

We decided to make variations when using the buffalo seasoning and frying. The

three variations we used were wings dusted with buffalo seasoning after frying,

buffalo seasoning before rolling in breadcrumbs, and buffalo seasoning on just

before frying. The buffalo seasoning on before frying yielded identical tasting

products, while the buffalo seasoning on after yielded a much tastier and spicy

buffalo wing. One problem encountered with the wings came when we looked at

how well the chicken meat cooked inside the coating. The meat had almost a baby

food look and consistency to it. It was not very appetizing and was assumed to not

be very appetizing to consumers it would be sold to. For the next week we will need

an emulsifier of sorts to make the meat have more of a tough texture and hopefully

hold together better. 

     The next experimental product that was tested was the build-your-own chicken tacos. We sliced the chicken into chunky, bite-sized pieces and cooked it in olive oil and taco seasoning in frying pan. Once the chicken meat was cooked it was placed into a taco shell and lettuce and cheese was sprinkled over the top. This product looked like your average taco, but the taste did not turn out very well for us. The meat was very bland and extremely tough to eat. Next time the tacos are made, more seasoning needs to be added to make them tastier and we need to come up with a way to make the meat less tough.

Day 2 of Week 2

    We came back the next day to finish up making the Asian dish that we were

unable to make on day 1 and take another stab at trying to make the wings

better. We found it much easier to form the weeks this day and decided to

re-formulate the meat in the batter to get rid of the baby food consistency from

the day before. We added starch and xanthan gum into the ground up meat to

give the meat a better hold and make it more solid to chew. The meat was also

ground up in a different machine that made the meat particles much larger.

Ultimately the wings came out much better. The consistency of the ground up

meat was perfect and it held its moisture decently well. The meat inside the coating

did turn out kind of bland in taste and in look, so we will need to come up with a

way to make it look more appetizing and add spices to the meat mixture to make

it tastier. Chandler whipped up a really tasty Asian style sauce that ended up going

really well with the chicken, so the next time we cook we are going to try to do that.