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Cheese Sauce with Roux/ Sodium Citrate Combo

Yitzchok_Bernstein_88575

The Modernist Cheese Sauce is awesome. It can be cost prohibitive though, because it requires alot more cheese. Would adding sodium citrate to a bechamel before adding the cheese help make it more creamy/stable?
I haven't seen this discussed anywhere.

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grant

I have not tried that. I would think it should work perfectly, making it more stable and more creamy.. If cost is a concern, you can always add more milk, or make a béchamel as you are suggesting.

Grant

Yitzchok_Bernstein_88575

@grant- Thanks, myy main issue with straight bechamel is the graininess aged cheeses contribute. Strangely American cheese has always helped prevent that (I guess it has sodium citrate in it.) But American is off the menu these days.....

For the next round, Im going to make a super rich cheddar sauce with sodium citrate, then cut it with roux. Adding more milk to the sodium citrate just gives me a watery sauce.

jmarkaustin

Quick question... Is there any reason one couldn't substitute say Asadero & Monterey Jack for the cheeses in the sauce recipe? I've always wanted to make cheese dip like you find in restaurants throughout the South (started in Arkansas) and have had success with white American (Boars Head) melted with half-n-half mixing in a little Pepper Jack and spices but have always felt the flavor profile could be better. The cheese sauce recipe got me to thinking that if I use better (i.e. more flavorful) cheeses to begin with I might get a better result. Any thoughts on this?

ipreferale

@jmarkaustin-I do not see why not as I have used blue and smoked gouda, monterey jack etc with no issues.

seijoed

I have used smoked gouda, aged cheddar, monterrey, blue cheese, you might have to tweak things a little but normally I've never seen the need for roux either. MC has good hints on what will probably work and why too.

Chris_Young_80640

I'm working on some more "science of cheese" text for the future, here is a draft of something I've written already that goes to the question of what cheeses will tend to melt well.

For a successful melt, it's essential that the oil, water, and proteins remain emulsified. Casein and fragments of casein are the primary emulsifiers in most cheeses. The age of a cheese is an important factor to consider when choosing a melting cheese. Usually, a blend of older and younger cheeses is the best strategy for balancing appealing flavor with a pleasant texture.

Age is important because as a cheese matures, casein proteins breaks down into shorter peptides; these protein fragments have weaker emulsifying capacity and interact with each other less than intact protein strands. This is why a mature cheese has a weaker brittle texture, while a younger cheese has a stronger elastic texture.

If you melt a very old cheese, it inevitably splits and becomes greasy because the proteins are so degraded that they don't have the capacity to maintain a smooth emulsion. On the other hand, if you try to melt a very young cheese it tends to soften rather than actually melt; this is because the proteins are intact and interact with one another too strongly to let go when hot.

So, when melting cheese, a blend is usually the way to get the best result. If your goal is a smooth flowing spreadable cheese, then favor more mature cheese in your blend. If, you want a cheese sauce with good stretch, favor a less mature cheese in your blend.

But the age of cheese alone is not the only factor to consider when melting cheese. Acidity plays an important role that's under appreciated. And so is the mount of calcium phosphate.

An acidic cheese lacks cohesion and stretch and simply won't melt well. In concrete numbers, as the pH falls below 5.2 a cheese develops a weak, crumbly texture because the strength of protein-protein interactions are diminished—feta is a good example of such a cheese. In contrast, elevating the pH towards 6.3 improvises elasticity and the emulsifying capacity of the casein proteins. So for an appealing, emulsified cheese sauce—whether loose and flowing or cohesive and elastic—the pH of the melt should be between 5.2 and 6.3.

Calcium, in the form of calcium phosphate, strengthens the bonds between casein proteins, which yields a sturdy and elastic curd. Unfortunately, other than by experience, it's difficult to know which cheeses will have lots of calcium for stretch. Emmenthal does, for example, where as cheddar cheese has less. But while low-acidity, low-calcium cheeses that aren't too old will melt well, none will really begin to truly flow. And this is where so-called melting salts become an invaluable tool for cooks looking to engineer the texture of their molten cheese. Sodium citrate and sodium hexametaphosphate are two of the best. Although there are others, and often blends work best. More on this in the future.

jmarkaustin

Thanks for the information! Very helpful and I look forward to learning more! I think I have a better grasp on why I would get a "gritty" texture when I used too much Jack cheese. Since lime juice makes since in a Tex-mex cheese dip I'll add that to my next batch to raise the pH. I've always thought of this as a every-once-in-a-while treat due to the amount of American cheese having read somewhere that the stuff is one molecule away from being plastic and rats won't eat it. Has anyone else heard that? Would love to hear from those of you who know what you're talking about on that!

Tim_Sutherland_52834

I don't know if it is almost plastic, but that neon, day-glow, Annatto coloured, stuff that comes in a spray can is not cheese.

seijoed

I mostly just hate the flavor of American cheese, dig the texture. I've done quite a few melty cheese from aged cheese that looks

like american cheese, I normally just pour it in on a silpat and let it re-set and firm up.