Ruined balsamic salad dressing, how to recover?
My favorite balsamic salad dressing seems to have been discontinued, so I decided to make my own. In doing so I added far, far too much xanthan gum and am now left with 350ml of oily herbed balsamic gel. I tried adding oil to thin it out, but of course had no luck. I have not yet tried an immersion blender (it's too late at night here to run it).
How can I recover from this, either moving ahead with the salad dressing or finding an alternate use for the gel, or should I just cut my losses and start over?
Best Answer
Well, adding more of everything but xanthan gum would of course have the effect of diluting the xanthan gum. The problem is, it's possible that you used way, way too much xanthan gum (easy to do, the amount you need to slightly thicken a dressing is minuscule), so unless you've got a few 50-gallon drums of balsamic vinegar lying around, I wouldn't advise that you go that route. Instead, I'd suggest that you make a new dressing with no xanthan gum, then add the old dressing a bit at a time until you like the result.
As for finding an alternate use for (the rest of) your balsamic xanthan slime: I wouldn't. Xanthan gum is texturally quite unpleasant except at very low concentrations.
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Can balsamic vinaigrette spoil?
Balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing that has been continuously refrigerated will generally stay at best quality for about 6 to 9 months.Why did my salad dressing separate?
Allow me to explain: As you no doubt know, oil and water do not mix, and will eventually separate even after industrial mixing. A surfactant is the scientific name for an emulsifier, a.k.a. something that attracts both water and oil molecules and binds them together.Why does my balsamic vinegar have chunks in it?
If there's a gross gel-like blob floating in your vinegar bottle, that blob is called the mother of vinegar. It's a form of cellulose and it's completely harmless. If it grosses you out, you can strain it using coffee filters. If not, you can leave it be, or even eat it.Why is my vinaigrette so thin?
Use the correct ratio of ingredients It's been tried and tested millions of times and works. If you add more oil than the vinegar can hold, you're on rocky ground and risk a split, thin vinaigrette.Three Color Salad w/ Balsamic Vinaigrette Recipe - Laura Vitale \
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Answer 2
Not knowing how much xanthan gum you added it's impossible to guess if you should start over or not. The recipe for Easy Garlic Balsamic Salad Dressing uses 4 oz olive olive oil, 2 oz of balsamic vinegar and 1/8 teaspoon of xanthan gum. So those would seem like reasonable starting proportions. If you can't use at least half of your original batch (so say you end up with 1.5 batches) it would seem better to just start over.
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