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Emulsified Sauces


RedHermes

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Let me add my thanks for your time on the forum. I am just learning how to cook and I am very much enjoying my first reading of On Food and Cooking (1984).

In the chapter on emulsified sauces (which I just finished reading) you speak to the importance of the cholesterol – lecithin balance in maintaining the stability of an emulsion.

I have started buying eggs branded Egg-lands Best that have lower saturated fat (1 g vs 1.5g) and lower cholesterol (180mg vs 213mg) than normal eggs. Will such eggs be less effective than normal eggs in creating emulsified sauces?

I have also heard of eggs that are pasteurized in the shell by long, low heating. Will such treatment have a negative effect on the emulsifying power of the eggs?

Thank you

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More recent work on egg emulsions, which I’ve taken into account in the revision, give greater credit for emulsion stability to the yolk proteins rather than to the lecithin/cholesterol ratio, so low-cholesterol eggs should work just as well. Eggs pasteurized in-shell have suffered a small degree of protein denaturation and so may be somewhat less effective than raw eggs, but in hot egg sauces that’s probably not an issue—the sauce as a whole will get just as hot.

This would be a good experiment to try—making two sauces side by side with the two different eggs, then seeing whether they behave differently. If you do it, please let me know what you find!

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