ABSTRACT
176The name khurchan means leftover scrapes, in Hindi. Like other traditional milk products, khurchan is mostly produced manually on cottage scale with variable quality. Boil the milk, scrape off the leftover from the karahi bottom, slap it on a tray, sprinkle bhoora (powdered sugar), cut into pieces, and serve. No systematic work has yet been carried out in respect of its quality. In view of the rapid growth of organized dairying in India, with greater emphasis on the production of indigenous dairy products an attempt has been made to standardize the procedure of manufacturing and to attain uniform quality. Buffalo milk was collected from local market and standardize for 6% fat and 9% solids not fat (SNF). Good quality sugar was purchased from local market. Shallow pans (karahi) of various thicknesses and diameter were purchased from market providing requisite thickness and diameter on order basis. Iron shallow pans were used for preparation of khurchan having diameter of 8 cm with varying thickness of 10, 15, 20, and 25 mm. Standard whole milk (one liter at a time) is kept on an open fire in a shallow pan (karahi). Evaporation was done without stirring. During evaporation clotted cream (malai) was removed and kept at colder side of pan. Quality of milk and thickness of pan have remarkable impact on the quality of product. It has been found that most acceptable product involves standardization of buffalo milk for 6% fat and 9% SNF and iron shallow pan (karahi) of 20 mm thickness and this product scored high 8.5 on 9-point hedonic scale. The chemical composition of product was also determined. It had 22% moisture, 25% fat, 17% protein, 15% lactose, 18% sucrose, and 3% ash. It was observed that thickness of the pan has remarkable impact on the quality of khurchan due to heat induced interactions of its constituents.
