Food Chemistry
A non-enzymatic browning reaction between a reducing sugar's carbonyl group and a free amino group of an amino acid or protein, producing melanoidin pigments and a wide range of flavour compounds.
What gives bread crust, roasted coffee, fried onions and a seared tandoori chicken their brown colour and flavour — distinct from sugar caramelising on its own.
Thermal degradation of sugars in the absence of amino groups, producing colour and flavour compounds. It requires much higher temperatures than the Maillard reaction.
Browning catalysed by polyphenol oxidase, which oxidises phenolic compounds to quinones that polymerise into brown melanins. It requires oxygen, the enzyme, and a phenolic substrate.
A sugar with a free aldehyde or ketone group that can act as a reducing agent — glucose, fructose, lactose and maltose are reducing sugars. Sucrose is not, because both anomeric carbons are involved in the glycosidic bond.
A process contaminant formed from asparagine and reducing sugars during Maillard browning above about 120 °C, classified as a probable human carcinogen.
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