Abstract
Pigeon pea is underutilized mostly due to its long cooking time and
limited knowledge of its benefits. Effect of traditional processing
methods on cooking time, proximate and amino acid composition of
pigeon pea were investigated. Pigeon pea was sorted and divided into
five portions of 1.0 kg each. One portion was the control while remaining
four portions were treated separately using boiling alone (PpB), soaking
for 12 h and boiling (PpS), boiling with cooking salt (PpSs) and boiling
with potash (PpBp). All the four samples were boiled until soft. The
cooking time was recorded and the samples were analyzed for chemical
composition from which metabolizable energy values were calculated.
Soaking for 12 h before boiling and addition of potash reduced the
cooking time by 50% and 24%, respectively. Proximate composition of
the samples ranged from 15.58-18.65% (protein), 2.13-2.66% (fat), 2.48-
3.38% (ash), 3.68- 5.18% (crude fiber) and 60.79 -63.88% (carbohydrate).
Soaking for 12h prior to boiling ranked highest in protein content
(16.69%) while boiling with potash reduced the fat (2.13%), ash (2.48%)
and carbohydrate (60.79%) contents to great significant level. The boiled
alone sample had the best amino acid profile. Although, addition of
potash reduced the cooking time by 24%, it adversely affected the
proximate and metabolizable energy values of pigeon pea. The findings
could help enhance the nutritive quality of pigeon pea-based diets and
improve its utilization.