Chemical characterisation, biogenic amines contents, and identification of fish species in cod and escolar steaks, and salted escolar roe products

Forty-one cod steaks, fifteen escolar steaks, and fifteen salted escolar roe products sold in Taiwan market were purchased and tested to determine the biogenic amine, histamine-forming bacteria, and identification of fish species. The levels of pH value, salt content, Aw, TVBN and APC in all samples ranged from 5.3 to 7.0, 0.7 to 5.6%, 0.80 to 0.99, 0.8 to 59.9 mg/100 g and 2.5 to 7.3 log CFU/g, respectively. None of these samples contained coliform bacteria and Escherichia coli. The average content of histamine in all samples was less than 5 mg/100 g US Food and Drug Administration guideline value. Nine histamine-forming bacterial strains isolated from cod, escolar, and salted escolar roe samples produced 2.0–62.3 ppm of histamine in trypticase soy broth (TSB) supplemented with 1.0% l-histidine (TSBH). Assay of DNA direct sequence and polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP) revealed that mislabeling rate of 41 cod steaks was 31.6% (13/41). Among them, 7 samples (17%) and 6 samples (14.6%) were identified as Ruvettus pretiosus (oilfish) and Reinhardtius hippoglossoides (Greenland halibut), respectively. In addition, most of escolar steaks and salted escolar roe products were identified as Lepidocybium flavobrunneum (escolar), while other samples were identified as R. pretiosus.