The Bull’s eye fish (Priacanthus hamrur), which is present in large biomass in the South-East coast of India, is generally considered an underutilized fish species. An attempt was made to add value, by producing fish crackers. Fish crackers are foods which contain comminuted fish and are classified as “half products” and “intermediate products”. It is the most popular snack food in Southeast Asian countries.

Most of the snacks available in the market are mainly based on cereals, which are high in calorie and low in protein content. For this reason, snacks like fish crackers with high protein content was thought to be developed for nutritional enrichment. Different starches flour like rice, sago and tapioca, as a functional ingredient, were used to prepare fish cracker at 50:50% ratio.

The crackers (rice - C1, sago - C2 and tapioca C-3) were subjected to analyses for proximate as well as comparative physicochemical, microbiological and sensory evaluation so as to determine the nutritive value and its quality attributes for general acceptance. Dried cracker had a moisture content of 10 to 12%, protein content of 22 to 24% whereas, lipid content found low but it significantly increased after frying due to oil absorption. Nutritionally all the treatments were at par with each other. However, maximum linear expansion was observed in tapioca based fish crackers (83.03%). Water absorption index (WAI) decreased while water solubility index (WSI) increased for tapioca based fish cracker. Maximum lightness and lower redness as well as yellowness was noticed with sago based fish cracker after frying. Fish crackers incorporated with tapioca starch had a maximum score for the sensory aspect of crispiness (4.6), texture (4.4), odour (3.4) taste (3.8) and overall acceptability (4.4).