Getting Saucey

Today (1/3/13) we not only learned about emulsions and emulsifiers but we worked with different ones through preparing different sauces. The definition of an emulsifier is something that contains molecules with a water loving end and a water fearing end. An emulsion is a combination of 2 liquids that don't mix. Specific emulsifiers in cooking include egg yolk and mustard, while examples of emulsions in cooking are sauces such as vinaigrette, hollandaise sauce, beurre blanc, gravy and mayonaise. As we learned throughout the lab, temperature is very important when working with emulsions! From personal experience with my group when making mayonaise, we left the egg yolk on heat for too long and too high and it did not thicken as it should have, so out end result was not correct due to this temperature problem! The mayonaise was very runny and thin and was not holding together as mayonaise typically would. We spilt into groups of 3 and were given recipes to prepare mayonaise, hollandaise sauce and beurre blanc (white butter). There were stations set up with the necessary ingredients and tools needed to successfully prepare each sauce. Dr. Logan gave certain groups specific instructions to defer from the recipe so that we could see ways in which the emulsifiers really did hold together the final product. It was really interesting to see the different ingredients that go into these sauces that you would never think ( at least I would have never thought). For example, I had no idea egg yolk was a main part of mayonaise. Through the in class discussion I learned that the group who used extra virgin olive oil when making the mayonaise was not successful and the group who used 2 whole eggs, rather than just egg yolks also was unsuccessful. This can be explained through the emulsion and emulsifier processes. At the end of the labs we recorded through lab reports our observations and explained in detail what we did during the lab. My lab group was rather unsuccessful at making the mayonaise, but the hollandaise sauce and beurre blanc were much more successful!