Lemon Butter Sauce

[sdj3]

Hello all. Last Sunday, I attempted a lemon butter sauce (don't laugh -- though I'm an expert eater, I'm a novice cook!) The recipe called for white wine, white wine vinegar, minced garlic, butter, and lemon. As the wine, vinegar, and garlic were reducing on the stove, all of the garlic pieces TURNED BLUE!! Everything else worked out perfectly - the finished sauce had a great consistency, color (except for the weird little blue chunks of garlic) and taste. I thought about straining out the garlic, but it was just my sister and me eating, so I didn't bother.

The recipe didn't mention anything about color changes. Why did this happen? Did I make a mistake? Anything I should do differently next time?

[Toliver]

I had the same thing happen when I baked some salmon with white wine and garlic (along with some dill and some vidalia onion...no lemon, though). It freaked me out. I thought it was a reaction to the foil that I used to line the pan but given your experience, I am thinking the culprit was the white wine since that is the common denominator in both of our cases.

I hope an SSB will pop in and explain this phenomenon.

[blueapron]

Sounds like a chemical reaction, but I dont think it is the wine rather the pan.You guys are not using aluminum pans are you because the acid would do crazy things in that pan?.

[sdj3]

hmmm. like I said, I'm a novice. I'll have to check to see if the pan I used is aluminum when I get home tonight.

[Bicycle Lee]

yup...sounds like an aluminum pan to me...

[sdj3]

Thanks for the answers!

[cheftoad]

Definitely the pan- use stainless steel or other non-reactive suface whenever cooking acidic foods, such as cuisson (reduction) for butter sauces, tomato, etc...

[fifi]

Nope... Not the aluminum pan. I have had garlic turn blue when pickling some cloves or half heads along with jalapenos. That concoction was mostly vinegar, no wine, and all in non-reactive containers. I am thinking that it has something to do with the acetic acid. I suspect that there is an acetate salt being formed that is blue but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

[Dana]

Got to be something with the acid. For my daughter's wedding, I added some garlic to some good jarred green olives , and they turned green, too. What's up?

[Toliver]

Nope... Not the aluminum pan. I have had garlic turn blue when pickling some cloves or half heads along with jalapenos. That concoction was mostly vinegar, no wine, and all in non-reactive containers. I am thinking that it has something to do with the acetic acid. I suspect that there is an acetate salt being formed that is blue but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

Thanks, fifi. You're close to being an SSB (you gotta work on the "smug" part ) so I appreciate you throwing in your two cents.

The weird part is I make the salmon recipe often enough to know that it doesn't usually turn the garlic blue. That only happened one time. So I am trying to think what other variables could have been different that one time that sent the garlic over the blue edge.

Since I always line the pan with foil, the only thing that might have really changed from each time I made the dish was either the kind of white wine I used or perhaps even some sort of difference in the garlic I used (more acid in the garlic?).

Very odd. Maybe one of the wine bloggers will pop in with some info to either rule out the wine or frame it as the culprit.

And wouldn't it be funny if blue garlic became this year's "foam"?