Instructions: The yolks of eggs fulfil three main functions in cooking. One is turning liquids into solids as in a baked custard or quiche. The second is as a thickening agent for liquids. What happens here is that when the yolks are whisked into liquids over heat the thickening agent in the yolk gets distributed to make a smooth thick sauce or soup. They are also a powerful emulsifier that can bind and thicken oil or butterbased sauces such as mayonnaise or hollandaise.

How to handle egg yolks
The problem the cook has when dealing with egg yolks is that if they are not treated carefully and in the right way they can `split or curdle a mixture. In parting company with the whites they have lost some of their stability as egg whites are great stabilisers. This often causes problems and stress for beginners but there is some good news here. Over the years I have spent cooking and developing recipes and trying to help busy people cook at home without undue stress I have developed various ways of using egg yolks in all the traditional recipes without the worry of curdling and spoiling a recipe. On this subject I have to part company with the purists. Im perfectly aware that there are people who simply dont mind standing over things for ages nurturing them along and whisking till the cows come home (as my Welsh grandmother would say) but not me I dont want to be confined to the kitchen missing out on a conversation.

Therefore I am here to tell you that you need never be afraid to use egg yolks in a custard. If you add just a small amount of comflour there will never be any danger of it curdling and even if it looks guilty of it it will soon whip back to an amazing smoothness because that tiny amount of comflour will stabilise the eggs.

No more whisking!

If you do exactly the same making lemon curd sabayon sauce or zabaglione it will mean (as with custard) that the time you spend carefully whisking will be 2 minutes instead of 20. So heres an end to boring whisking sessions over bowls of barely simmering water because life is short enough as it is! Similarly I have discovered that when trying to make a lighter version of hollandaise sauce (for health reasons not quite so much butter) adding whisked egg whites not only makes it go twice as far but also stabilises it perfectly. This means no lastminute fuss that you can make it two days ahead if you want to reheat it and you can even freeze it so that if you only want a small amount you can have some tucked away.

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