Lecithin

Lecithin is a substance that offers numerous health benefits such as decreasing cholesterol, promoting cardiovascular health, restoring damaged livers and improving the brain’s memory function and others. It is naturally found in foods such as egg yolk, fish, grains, legumes, peanuts, soybeans, wheat germ, and yeast. Lecithin is also sold in capsules as a dietary supplement and in powder, grain, or liquid. For these applications, it is extracted from eggs or soybeans.

Lecithin has many uses in food preparation. It can be used as an emulsifier. For example, it keeps cocoa and cocoa butter in a candy bar from separating. Lecithin is also added to many margarines and butter substitutes as an anti-spattering agent for shallow frying.



Chefs and home cooks can use emulsifying properties of lecithin in various liquid preparations, such as sauces or soups, to improve the consistency and texture. For example, lecithin is excellent as a substitute for egg yolk in making emulsions such as the horseradish emulsion that I made recently.



I have used lecithin in my Carrot Wolfberry Super Soup to make the soup very silky and smooth. I've also added it to the gravy I made for Thanksgiving dinner.



In this recipe for hot chocolate, I added lecithin to whipped cream to help me make the cream stable to be able to "write" the letters on top of the hot chocolate.



I've added lecithin to smoothies for both health benefits and to improve the consistency of the smoothie.



Finally, lecithin can be used to make culinary foams. Just the right small amount of lecithin is required to make a good air foam.



Here are some of the foams that I have posted about:

Rhubarb "Sushi" with Mint Mousse and Foam

POM Nectarine Frozen Foam

Grilled Scallops with Flower Foam

Strawberry Oat Basil Smoothie with a Duo of Foams

Seared Bay Scallops with Fennel Pollen Air

Powdered lecithin makes the best foam but that can be hard to find, so granules can be used as well. Flavored lecithin granules were particularly great with the smoothies or the whipped cream, while unflavored granules were used for other preparations.



Liquid lecithin might be good to use in baking but for making emulsions and foams, it's not a good choice because (at least in my personal experience) it just sticks to the immersion blender. I get soy liquid and flavored lecithin granules at Wegmans and unflavored soy lecithin granules at Whole Foods. Powdered lecithin can be found online, e.g. here.

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5 Star Makeover Reminder: This month's 5 Star Makeover Challenge is to create a Compound Butter with a twist! You can make this compound butter with a butter substitute or real butter if preferred. Please check the original announcement for more details.