Lesson 18: Emulsion

Emulsion sauces are the successful combination of 2 or more ingredients that normally would not mix together, like oil and vinegar. In order to be successful you need to add the oil into the dish slowly, whisky quickly. You also need an emulsifying agent: mustard, egg yolks, nuts, garlic, and/or soy.

Now to be specific, we started by making Sauce Hollandaise. This calls for egg yolks, water, clarified butter, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. In order to cook the eggs, you whip them with some of the other ingredients in a bowl that sits on top of a heated pot. After that you whisk in the butter and lemon juice. With all emulsified sauces, you run the risk of the sauce 'breaking', not holding together with its fellow ingredients. This happened to my sauce originally, making it very ugly. Chef then showed me that by adding some of the emulsifier and water and then whisking it will bring it back to life:

Hollandaise prep

Hollandaise

Sauce Bearnaise: This is basically hollandaise plus shallots,  peppercorns, tarragon, tarragon vinegar and white wine. If you like hollandaise, this is like the bonus version.

Sauce Beurre Blanc: Winner of the day!! This sauce was so flavorful and delicious, for obvious reasons. It called for a full pound of butter, whisked into shallots, white wine, white wine vinegar, bay leaf, and peppercorn. 

Beurre Blanc Simmering

Whisking in butter

Mayonnaise: I am not a mayo girl, but after making it homemade I understand the hype, a little. Making mayo is actually pretty easy: Whisking in egg yolk, lemon juice, and dijon mustard. Then you slowly pour in canola oil and whisk quickly and add salt and pepper. The uncooked egg yolk made me nervous, but the acid in the recipe cooks it enough that the chance of getting sick is very slim. With this said, you can not store home made mayo for  a long period of time like store bought mayo, only a day or two.

The runner up for the best sauce of the day goes to the Vinaigrette. I am one to make my own salad dressing over using store bought. However, I never quite knew how to get the consistency of the delicious dressings you get at a restaurant, but now I do. We made this vinaigrette with shallots, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, canola oil, and salt and pepper. After combining the shallots, mustard and vinegar you add the canola oil in a thin stream and whisk it through. This process combines all of the ingredients. I am now an addict and have made salad for the past 4 meals, thanks culinary school for keeping me healthy.