Define

This is the third week of the food product development project. Before jumping into the third week, I will recap the first two weeks. In the first week, we were able to create three different ideas that would be good for our food product project. Our group decided on experimenting with bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers stuffed with a shredded chicken, cream cheese, and seasonings for the filling. The second product that was created was the sweet chicken bacon wrapped balls which consisted of shredded chicken, brown sugar, and bacon. Our third product was buffalo chicken wontons which consisted of shredded cheddar cheese, shredded chicken, buffalo sauce, ranch dressing, and cream cheese to fill the wonton wrapper. During week two, we were able to experiment with each of these products to see which one we considered to be the best for our group. After experimenting with each of the products, we decided that we would continue to develop the buffalo chicken wontons for the product development competition. We came to the conclusion that the bacon wrapped chicken jalapeño poppers were good, but that they were not original. After taste testing the bacon wrapped sweet chicken balls, we all agreed that they were not palatable and therefore, we did not decide to proceed with this product idea. Ultimately, our group decided to continue formulating the buffalo chicken wontons.

After deciding to continue with the buffalo chicken wontons, we looked closer at the ingredients. When we made this product in week two, we used chicken tenders, buffalo sauce, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, ranch dressing, and wonton wrappers. Our vision of this product is to provide a convenient food/appetizer that can combine the American and Asian cuisines and cultures to reach a different market. So, when we were creating this product last week, we ran into a problem with the wontons. Our wontons were delicious but when properly folding the wonton, we found that we could not put a lot of filling in it. Since we could not put a lot of filling in the wonton, we had comments like “not enough buffalo chicken filling” and “too much wonton and too little filling.” With these comments, we decided to look into different papers such as egg roll paper and spring roll papers. After looking at the wrappers, we then looked at the filling. We decided to try different flavors by using blue cheese dressing and by using the original ranch dressing. To further perfect this product, we are using functional ingredients. When creating this product, we decided to use a flour paste to help aid in sticking the wonton paper to itself to aid in the wonton staying together. Another functional ingredient we are using is an egg wash. We are using the egg wash over the wontons to give a golden color after frying the final product. The next functional ingredient that we are looking at is pectin. Our group decided to make a jalapeño pepper jelly as a side to dip the wontons in. This jelly will also give our product color and provide an extra flavor to the product.

After looking at the different ways to refine our product, we decided to implement some of the ideas. When we got to the kitchen, we made two separate bowls of the buffalo chicken dip; one contained the blue cheese dressing, and the other one contained the original ranch dressing. We also decided to try using the egg roll wrappers. When we started using the egg roll wrappers, we were able to fill the wrappers with more filling, and we were able to achieve/provide a cohesive product that had filling in every bite. We used the flour paste when folding and rolling these wrappers to ensure that the hold was strong. To continue refining our product, we also tried using spring roll wrappers. When we decided to use these wrappers, we ran into issues because the wrappers ripped easily, therefore, we were unable to use these wrappers for our product. Since we had wonton wrappers, we used them again to see if we could fold them differently to fit more filling, but after comparing them to the egg roll wrappers, we decided that the egg roll wrappers will be the best for this product. We chose the egg roll wrappers because we were able to distribute more filling in the product, have an even distribution of filling, they are better quality (i.e., thicker) and because it allows for a better presentation of the product (i.e., as an appetizer at Applebee’s). After deciding to use the egg roll wrappers, we looked at the different fillings.

When our group ate the egg rolls, we decided that the original ranch dressing complimented the buffalo sauce better when compared to how the blue cheese dressing tasted. The blue cheese dressing was overpowering and did not enhance the buffalo sauce flavor. Due to the potential that consumers would not like the boldness from the blue cheese taste, we decided to continue using the original ranch dressing in the dip mixture. After looking at our main product, we then focused on our side dish, jalapeño pepper jelly. Taste participants enjoyed our pepper jelly and stated that it complimented the main dish well; however, participants thought that a little bit too much green food coloring was used. The side dish provided good flavor to our product, as well as a change in texture. For this week, the pepper jelly will be made with less food coloring.

When talking things over, we bounced ideas around about adding a sliced or diced jalapeño in the bottom of our egg roll to give a kick of flavor along with the buffalo sauce. We also talked about adding diced onion to the filling to give additional color and to enhance the appearance to the product. Our group also discussed the functional ingredients that we can use in our product; one of the ideas was to use modified corn starch to help aid in giving the filling a stickier consistency, therefore allowing it to keep its shape throughout the cooking process. The corn starch would aid as a thickener and would assist in the water holding capacity (less water in the product to prevent sogginess of the egg roll wrapper). We also discussed using thigh meat to add value to a chicken cut that is not necessarily favorable in the United States when compared to other countries. Our group is being innovative in how we can enhance our product and will continue to perfect it in the following weeks. A survey will be handed out in the coming weeks to assess what group of consumers will be interested in our product and what they would like to see to enhance our product to get better acceptability in the marketplace.

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