Behold, the Power of Cheese
I love to cook but have been perplexed by cheese sauces. Mac and cheese is wonderful and I have wanted to make my own for sometime since the fluorescent processed stuff is tasty but scary.
However, I have been afraid to do so. My aversion to making my own cheese sauce stems mainly from one incident occurring twice:
1. Misch's cheese sauce nightmare. On the houseboat before our wedding, she and Karl made an awesome dinner. The cheese was supposed to be blended in at the end. But it didn't blend and just made a stringy (but tasty) mess.When Brian and Marsha came to visit, we talked about making cheese sauces, beer cheese soup, etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Since I have more food science books than most people should, I looked it up in McGee, the bible of food science. Sure enough, the abitity of cheese sauces to blend properly without breaking are influenced by the following two factors:
2. I tried repeating it and ended up with the same stringy mess.
1. Heat. Too high of a heat and the sauce will break. Period.With this in mind, I made my first cheese sauce last night. 2 tablespoons of butter made into a roux with 2 tablespoons of flour. Cooked until nicely browned. Add a cup of milk and whisk until thick. Kill the heat. When warm but not hot, I added the chedddar/jack combo (95/5) a bit at a time, whisking until smooth. More cheese, more stir. Lo and behold. Perfect. Silky smooth. Season to taste and pour over noodles. And it reheated well today (eating it for lunch now, hence this post).
2. The harder the cheese, the better your chance of success. Parmesan/Gruyere is going to blend better than cheddar which would blend better than monterey jack. But again, heat is key.
Feeling quite proud of myself, I talked to the chef at Spice last night about his awesome spicy mac (Spice is the dodgeball sponsor bar, formerly known as Billy Reed's). I asked him how he makes his Spicy Mac and was very excited when he told me: Reduce heavy cream, add 3 tablespoons of cajun seasoning, and then your cheese (80/10/10 blend of mozzarella, swiss and cheddar).
And then he cautioned me to make sure the sauce isn't too hot before adding the cheese else the sauce will break.
posted by Lisa @ 12:58 PM
8 Comments:
Lisa-I grew up on my mom's homemade mac& cheese, and always thought the box crap was disgusting so I hear ya. So my version is not fancy but I make it occasionally so if you want my basic recipe-
1. boil pasta till soft (best kind are rigatoni), turn off heat
2. pour in enough milk to just cover the bottom of the pan
3. add in slices of 2% american kraft singles enough to make it look cheesy-again, a judgement call, and stir them while they melt
4. practice, practice till you get the milk:cheese ratio just right
5. good for bad PMS times
i forgot to add that the brand 'old english' is good too, and occasionally my mom snuck in cheddar which i hate, you definitely don't want to use low-fat or fat-free cheese b/c the consistency is not the same!
Cheese sauce huh?
That is not the kind of mac and cheese we ate growing up.
Alton Brown has a great mac and cheese episode. He does every kind.
Don't you own the box set?
i saw a show on the food network (good eats) and they recommended that you add small bits of cheese at a time, let it dissolve and then add more.
Good luck with the cheese!
Somewhat peripheral to the issue of cheese...but I have found when making sauces from a roux that if you heat the milk up before adding it (such as microwaving it to very near boiling), take the pan off the heat, add the milk and IMEDIATELY start whisking, the sauce sets up nice and thick but also kind of airy and homogeneous, and this seems to make a really good foundation for anything you want to add later (e.g., cheese).
I have no idea why but I'm sure it's in one of your books.
BTW...I didn't "find" this, it is straight out of Julia Childs...
Kyle, I have to say your mac and cheese is my favorite. I love the southern casserole style. K and I make mac and cheese pretty frequently, favorite tricks are folding in cubes of cheese with the pasta and sauce so you get cheese pockets as well before baking, adding bacon, and topping with chips or cracker crumbs.
Lisa - I haven't read your blog in a while, so I am late posting this comment. My mother made THE BEST mac & cheese EVER. She didn't use a recipe, so needless to say, I haven't duplicated it yet ... however one of the things she did to make her sauce real creamy was to put in some velveeta cheese (along with the other cheeses) and then she added some cheese whiz to it... just an amount to make it creamy. Hers was real soupy before baking, because it dries out some while in the oven. It is a dish you cannot do ahead of time. Needs to be eaten pretty much as soon as it comes out of the oven! Jeri
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