Keeping frying margarine under control Changing your recipe to reduce salt, remove allergens or balance shifts between lecithin types? Palsgaard has compiled more than 1,000 multiparameter trials into a ‘solution engine’ that can determine how best to maintain or improve frying performance. By Anders Mølbak Jensen, Product & Application Manager, Lipid & Fine Foods Palsgaard A/S. A ‘Category 5’ frying margarine isn’t something you want in your kitchen. Crackling and spitting like a fire in a pine forest, it can clear a radius of five meters in under a minute, and demand hours of cleaning once the heat has died down. Of course, no manufacturer would ever want its product to act so aggressively – yet at Palsgaard over the past year or so, we’ve seen more than one customer’s formerly peaceful margarine turn into a kitchen tyrant. The cause? Most often, it is the result of rela- tively minor changes in salt, lecithin type and/or milk solids content. One small step for frying margarines, it seems, can be a giant step for their frying performance. SPITTING IMAGE Frying margarines – either in stick or liquid form – contain combinations of mono-diglycerides, lecithin, citric acid esters and salt in order to reduce ‘spattering’ – the spitting of hot fat that occurs when the margarine, or other frying aid such as oil or frying fats, melts in the pan. As vapor pressure increases, spattering occurs when coalesced droplets sink to the pan’s hot surface, rapidly converting to steam, and causing small explosions that send fat globules flying. In the vast majority of frying margarines, lecithin or alternatively citric acid esters are used both as emulsifiers and for their anti-spattering properties, along with a number of other functionalities. Both products emulsify water droplets, reducing their tendency to coalesce, and 1
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