Abstract
Buffalo meat shami kebab is a traditional comminuted meat product whose processing quality may be modified by fibre-rich plant ingredients. This study evaluated cooked mashed elephant foot yam (EFY) as a partial meat replacer in buffalo meat shami kebab. A control without EFY and treatments containing 5%, 10%, and 15% EFY were prepared in six independent batches. Physicochemical characteristics, proximate composition, and sensory attributes were evaluated. EFY incorporation increased product yield from 91.85% in the control to 94.35% at 10%, while moisture retention rose from 56.85% to 60.15%. Cooking loss, drip loss, and diameter shrinkage decreased to 7.08%, 2.82%, and 7.35%, respectively, at 10% EFY. Moisture content increased with EFY incorporation, whereas protein and fat contents declined as the replacement level increased. Crude fibre increased from 0.35% in the control to 1.12% at 15% EFY. Sensory evaluation showed that the 10% treatment recorded the highest scores for appearance and colour (8.45), flavour (8.38), juiciness (8.35), tenderness (8.40), binding (8.32), and overall acceptability (8.40). At 15% EFY, several sensory scores declined, including overall acceptability to 7.80. Under the conditions of this study, 10% cooked mashed EFY provided the most favourable balance between processing performance, composition, and sensory acceptability and was identified as the optimum incorporation level.