Why would a blended salad dressing change its color?
Yesterday evening we had a barbecue and I made a tomato/mozzarella salad. Since I couldn't find my dressing shaker, I used my hand blender (an ESGE M180S, in case it matters).
I got my dressing as usual, dark brown in colour, it was just a bit more smooth than usual, which I expected. A few minutes after pouring it over the salad, the colour went from dark brown to a very very light brown, looking as if I'd used cream in it. The taste stayed the same as usual, but the colour change I thought was weird.
So, why would a blended dressing change its colour while a shaken dressing wouldn't?
Probably the ingredients are important to answer this, so here's what I used:
Olive & sunflower oil (4 tbsp each)
Balsamic vinegar (2 tbsp) , malt vinegar (1 tbsp), apple vinegar (1 tbsp)
Hibiscus syrup (2 tbsp)
Dried basil (1 tsp)
Mustard (1 tsp)
Salt (1 tsp), sugar (1 tsp), freshly ground pepper
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Sounds like some air bubbles were incorporated in the mix and started to resurface (or blend together?).
Generally little air bubbles tend to make a mixture lighter in colour, you can see that, for instance, when you mix sugar and egg yolks.
Now, I'm not sure why did it happen once you poured it on the salad...
My first though was that it has to with the higher efficiency of the blender. Since the blender breaks up the fat into much smaller droplets than what is possible using a shaker or a whisk, that would account for the lighter color. This is also the reason why blended mayonnaise will be opaque and almost white, whereas a hand stirred mayonnaise can be quite translucent and much more yellow in color. Then I read on about the color changing from dark to light. I have absolutely no idea what that is about. Maybe somebody poured cream into it while you weren't looking? Or used magic? :)
It seems I was looking in the wrong direction here. It seems to have been the Mozzarella cheese. After pouring the dressing over the salad, the cheese started to leak some white liquid, which changed the colour of the dressing.
This was something I hadn't on my radar, since I had always used the same brand of cheese, and it had never happened before. I only found out because last week I did a shaken dressing, and this caused that behavior too. So it's nothing to do with the blender ...
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