Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Albumen along with all the recipes employing Albumen presented on this site, with 174 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Albumen recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Albumen as a major wild food ingredient.

Albumen is the white part of the egg it is essentially fat-free and contains a high proportion of protein (significantly glycoproteins, including ovalbumin, lysozyme, and ovomucin). Egg whites have many uses in cooking. Whisking egg whites traps air. When whisked egg whites are folded into other ingredients which are then baked, the air remains trapped inside making the likes of meringues, mousses or soufflés light and airy.

Egg albumen is one of the oldest fining agents used for reducing the harshness of red wines, it has also been used for the clarifying of beer. About 12.5% (w/w) protein can be found in fresh egg whites. The principal proteins in egg white are albumen (water soluble glycoproteins) and globular proteins (soluble in neutral dilute salt solutions).

Prior to the development of modern, chemical, leavening agents during the 19th century, beaten egg whites were one of the more important leavening agents in cakes, as the trapped air, expanding as the cake cooked led to the cake rising and becoming lighter.

*Note that egg whites will whisk to a greater volume at room temperature rather than from chilled. Egg whites can also be used in frozen foods such as sorbets as they stabilize the mixture during freezing, reducing the chances of ice crystals forming.