DETERMINATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF VOLATILE COMPOUNDS OF PASTIRMA USING SOLID PHASE MICROEXTRACTION/GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY/MASS SPECTROMETRY

Pastirma, a traditional dry cured Turkish meat product, has a great number of specific aroma compounds, which occur as a result of lipid oxidation, protein degradation and formulation of cemen paste. These compounds give characteristic flavor to pastirma and the main objective of this study was to determine the nature of these compounds. Fifty-eight volatile compounds, grouped into nine chemical classes were identified using solid phase microextraction technique (SPME) coupled to gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Aldehydes, mostly lipid oxidation products, were determined as the major chemical group, representing 17.54-78.02% of total volatile compounds. The major volatile aldehyde was hexanal (2.36-55.41%), followed by 2-methyl-2-butenal (0.97-14.69%) and then heptanal (0.29-4.77%). Sulfur compounds possibly derived from spices or formed by proteolysis of sulfur-containing amino acids, were the second most abundant group, with concentrations ranging between 6.04 and 50.60%. Other important volatile compounds of pastirma were aliphatic hydrocarbons, aromatic ketones, hydrocarbons, esters, alcohols, acids, terpenes, and furans.