Abstract: This study aimed to establish a standardized sensory evaluation method for the taste attributes of salt-baked pigeon during mastication. Through quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA), the key taste descriptors were identified as “salty” “umami” “sweet” “kokumi” “fatty” and “greasy”. An orthogonal experimental design was employed to determine the optimal formulation of the umami reference sample, which consisted of monosodium glutamate (0.6 g/L), disodium 5’-ribonucleotide (0.4 g/L), and salt (0.2 g/L). Intensity rating method indicated that 40 ℃ was the optimal temperature for sensory evaluation. The developed method was subsequently applied to investigate the influence of different heating processes on the sensory quality of salt-baked pigeon. The results revealed that the oven-prepared product exhibited the highest umami intensity (7.34 ± 0.14), while the clay pot-prepared product showed the highest saltiness intensity (7.09 ± 0.26). Time-intensity (TI) analysis demonstrated that the perceived intensity of saltiness and umami peaked at 7.50 ± 0.33 and 7.35 ± 0.08 after 10 and 20 s of oral processing, respectively. The proposed sensory evaluation method can effectively differentiate the taste profiles of salt-baked pigeon under different processing conditions, thereby providing a scientific basis for developing standards for the sensory quality evaluation of traditional salt-baked foods.

Key words: salt-baked pigeon; quantitative descriptive analysis; reference sample; intensity rating method; time-intensity analysis