Abstract:The gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to isolate and identify the volatile compounds of 8 pepper chicken samples from different restaurants in Shihezi for investigating the characteristic volatiles of Xinjiang pepper chicken soup , meanwhile and the correlation models of volatile compounds in 8 pepper chicken samples were established to obtain the key differences among the samples by hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA). Results showed that 74 kinds of volatile flavor compounds that had been detected were classified into 8 categories, including hydrocarbons (30), alcohols (10), aldehydes (10), esters (6), ketones (8), heterocyclic compounds (8), ethers (2) and sulfoethers (2). The contents of hydrocarbons (17.27%~74.22%)were the highest， followed by alcohols (14.77%~56.75%)，esters (0.50%~22.31%) and heterocycles (0.55%~11.36%). Compounds with higher contents were linalol (3.03%~37.31%) and D-limonene (5.60%~25.72%). Consequently, linalol, D-limonene and 2,4-decadienal played a key role in the formation of characteristic flavor of Pepper Chicken was identified.
