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Shelf stable fats for chicken wing sauce


nassaumary

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I make a standard chicken wing sauce with margarine as the base (margarine is shelf stable and doesn't require refrigeration). I've been using 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' for years, but am having more and more difficulty finding it here (anyone who's travelled and shopped in the Bahamas should understand...) I'm wondering if anyone has made this kind of sauce and had any luck with different margarines. I've use a couple of generic brands and they are horrible...very plastic tasting and doesn't bind to the rest of the ingredients. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

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Thanks Chris...I'll try the Parkay, and hope that it doesn't change the flavour too much. My problem has been with consistency and the fact that the other ingredients don't 'bind' to the cheaper margarines...

Jenni - I don't use butter because it isn't shelf stable...needs to be refrigerated. I am finalizing the recipe to sell it through restaurants and bars locally, and shelf stability is VITAL.

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Of course butter is shelf stable! You just have to remove the water from it. In Indian cuisine, this is called "ghee", been used for centuries.

Another shelf stable fat is cocoa butter, but it is expensive, very expensive.

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Creating good tasting, shelf stable bottled sauces are quite tricky, I would think - hence why most of them are born from food scientists rather than cooks. The question is just because the fat itself is shelf stable, does that mean the end product is? What is the water activity of the final product? Acidity level? Are you just adding powdered flavorings to the fat, or other stuff like vinegar, water, juices/tomato product, etc?

Other than the plastic taste, you could use the shelf stable margarines and emulsify it with lecithin, citric acid, or a different emulsifier.

For other shelf stable fats, what about oils or even crisco or lard?

If texture is a problem when using oil, you could always add a tiny bit of xanthan to thicken/for mouthfeel, and xanthan/locust bean gum have great synergistic properties so you can use less of them with great results.

Also, you can use any fat you want, if you were to properly can the sauce in a pressure canner. The heat will destroy any bacteria/spores, and will result in a shelf stable package, at least until it's been opened.

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ps - I'm not sure it's always true that margarine is shelf stable. Many of the margarines you mention contain dairy solids and other stuff; I think a margarine designed for food service, or a shelf-stable shortening / oil would probably be a safer bet.

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Coconut oil has a strong, distinctive flavour .... so does margarine, at least to my palate.

Presumably it would affect the end product, but since what the OP is talking about is a basting sauce for on-the-grill wings (in fact, a pretty common one in Latin America and the Caribbean), it won't be too big a difference to switch from adulterated fat to pure fat.

Elizabeth Campbell, baking 10,000 feet up at 1° South latitude.

My eG Food Blog (2011)My eG Foodblog (2012)

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If texture is a problem when using oil, you could always add a tiny bit of xanthan to thicken/for mouthfeel, and xanthan/locust bean gum have great synergistic properties so you can use less of them with great results.

A xanthan/arabic blend does that job nicely as well... with the additional benefit of making the oil/water emulsion very stable. TIC Gums makes several versions of it. I use the Ticaloid 310-S. They also make a version called "saucier" that is specifically designed for sauces and marinades but I've never worked with that one.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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I doubt I'd like a sauce made with margarine, I avoid that stuff like the plague, it's just nasty. But that's just a personal preference.

Can't you make a sauce w/o the fat, and users can add x amount of butter when they need it? Not sure where you're going with this, but do you think restaurants would be interested in a wing sauce made that way? It's so easy to make the buffalo wing sauce, I can't imagine there's much of a market to sell ready made, but I guess you did your research there.

But even with shelf stable margarine, once you add things to it, unless they are totally sterile, won't you compromise the shelf stability anyway?

"And don't forget music - music in the kitchen is an essential ingredient!"

- Thomas Keller

Diablo Kitchen, my food blog

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