Go to the Recipe: Cheddar Cheese Sauce
excellent texturewhat is the ph level we want to do this silky emulsion?I'm asking because I have trisodium citrate(kit ph)Can you describe me what's the role of Sodium hexametaphosphate in this casethank you
Two separate questions -1) If I don't have a chamber vacuum sealer can I cook the mixture over direct heat on the stove, or is the sous vide cooking a vital step?2) Does this sauce have any other applications? For instance, could it be used for macaroni & cheese, or would modifications be required?
You can definitely do this over the stove top, but the longer you heat it, the more cohesive and elastic it will be. You can definitely adapt this to other uses, but you may want to increase the amount of added liquid for a thinner sauce that you might use in Mac and Cheese.
will this sauce hold after being blended? if so what would it need to be blended again after reheating?
It will become thicker the longer you hold it hot.
Chris, is it possible to make a stable cheese sauce without sodium citrate. Used as a thickener corn starch or potato.
Yes. Use a very dry tart wine (it provides the fruity acids, like citrate) and blend the grated cheese with a small amount of starch.
Is it possible to omit the SHMP and bump up the sodium citrate? A similar recipe in Modernist at Home lacks SHMP in its ingredients. What does the SHMP accomplish in this recipe that sodium citrate would not do alone?
Is there any solution to the taste issue with Sodium Citrate? It makes wonderful melty cheese, but it also makes all cheese taste like kraft cheese slices. Not what you want when you have spent a tenner on a block of Comte.
Wondering the same thing. Anybody know what the SHMP accomplishes that the citrate doesn't?
I haven't seen discussion of this issue anywhere, but starting with MC's mac and cheese and playing around with sodium citrate cheese sauces since, I've found that the sauce, when thinned out (e.g., up along the edges of a sauce pan), dripped, or splashed dries and becomes very hard very quickly and highly impervious to breaking down again to clean up. Why is this? Do you suggest any solutions?
Can the cheddar cheese sauce be refrigerated and molted later
Kevin, you could just use a Bain-Marie to minimize the risk of over heating it. As usual though, without the temp control of a sous vide bath, you have to stand over it and stir. And stir.
Well, the simplest solution eluded me. The hardened cheese dissolves quite well in water. It just takes a short soak to loosen it enough to clean up. I still wonder why this occurs in the first place, though.
Can I create large portions and refrigerate it so warm it up the day after? the quality will be the same?
Mine came out quite grainy and split into an oily mess after a while... How long did everyone blend it and at how high of a speed?
Hola! I found a simpler recipe for this sauce. I use .1% xanthan gum to thicken the sauce, no SC or SH. The same amount of cheese than liquid, or a bit less cheese than liquid, and I use tomato water instead of milk, to maximize the umami flavor (where I work, we dice a lot of tomatoes in a machine, and always end up with tomato juice that I just have to strain), and For seasoning, if needed, I use vegetable Knorr powder or cube instead of salt. Steps: blend xanthin gum with tomato juice and heat it up to a boil, take it out of the heat. Add the shredded cheese to the pot and mix, it should melt with the residual heat. Season with Knorr vegetable. If needed, heat up a bit to melt well. Blend mix until very smooth. Done.
Maybe the problem is that the blender is cheap and not powerful enough.
Why is everyone ignoring this question
How to deal with the sauce if you want to use it later on? Can it be refrigerated for next day or the taste will change.. can you keep it hot?
Hello ! I will try this soon! Do you have an idea to make this recipe so you can serve it cold? Get a cold cheese sauce with a good texture?
One tenth of one percent?
never exceed 4 hours in the Sous vide with dairy.
How come this one has half the weight of the 'melting salts' as the nacho cheese version for the same amount of dairy?
Make sure you are using Sodium Citrate and not Citric Acid.
Mac & Kerrygold Reserve Cheddar sauce, with roasted Granny Smith apples and smoked bacon.
I actually used the similar recipe from Modernist Cuisine:
http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/silky-smooth-macaroni-and-cheese/
But combined with the ChefSteps sous vide and blender tricks. Worked really well and was very tasty and creamy. Perhaps a bit runnier sauce than I'd like, so maybe reduce the milk a bit (of course it solidifies as it starts to cool). Next time I'll also go for a sharper cheddar.
Put some of the sauce in the fridge to see how well it reheats tomorrow...
Regarding the MC recipe, it does reheat quickly and well in the microwave.
Note, the Modernist Cuisine ratio of pasta to cheese sauce results in twice as much cheese sauce as you probably want.
In addition to providing Sodium to replace Calcium, it chelates (removes from solution) the Calcium that stabilizes proteins in the cheese.
Start with better tasting cheese. Sodium citrate have very little flavor (and is much less "salty" than sodium chloride).
ChefSteps: In the video and recipe you use much more Swiss (Emmenthal) than aged cheddar cheese, however, in the introductory text you say "...it’s important to blend a mature cheese with a smaller amount of youthful cheese." That seems inconsistent.
For my second try making modernist Mac & Cheese, I actually followed the ChefSteps recipe, using:
150g Emmentaler AOC
150g Lincolnshire Poacher (a cheddar-like cheese that was once named Best English Cheese)
280g whole milk (reduced from CS recipe)
9g Na Citrate
1g NaCl (reduced from CS recipe, CS over salts EVERYTHING!)
0.75g NaHMP
Water for cooking the pasta was salted to 0.75% (w/v). I cooked the pasta using Kenji's low volume/turn off the heat technique. This recipe yielded about 1/3 more sauce than I needed for 250g of (dry) macaroni (~6 small servings).
Unfortunately, I have to call this a failure, particularly compared to my previous successful version based on Modernist Cuisine's recipe. Coming out of the sous vide bath, the mixture congealed very quickly and I had to add quite a bit of extra milk (unfortunately cold) to get it to blend, and then it was quite grainy and not very creamy. I'm sure the cold milk didn't help.
More successfully, to finish the dish, I mixed in some crisped up maple smoked bacon and chopped apples (Braeburn and Granny Smith) that were fried in bacon grease. The apple flavor went very well with the cheese. Thicker cut bacon would be better (for some reason the clerk cut mine as thin as prosciutto lol).
Be sure to heat your bowls, although interestingly, I didn't find this sauce congealed as quickly as the MC recipe once it was plated.
My conclusion is that this recipe may need to be optimized for different cheeses (amounts/ratios of cheese) and the amount of milk. Whether the amounts/types of the two melting salts accounted for the difference I observed from the MC recipe, I don't know.
Need to give this another shot...
I refrigerate the unused portion all the time and then reheat gently in microwave.
For my 3rd try, I went back to the MC recipe above, with the CS tricks, and that will be my go-to from now on:
285g Kerrygold Reserve Cheddar, slided 5mm thick
250g whole milk (decreased by 15g)
11g sodium citrate
Vac pack and sous vide 167°F x 20 min, then blended until smooth. Can be kept at 4°F and easily reheated on stove or in microwave before pouring over pasta.
225g Barilla Elbows (enough for 3 moderate servings), boiled 7 min in water with 0.75% salt per Kenji's method
Garnished with crisp smoke bacon bits and sautéed pear (with a dash of sugar when done).
I would like to humbly propose some changes to this recipe:
First, the procedure is WAY more complicated than it needs to be. Just shred the cheese and combine everything in a heat proof pitcher. Microwave until the cheese is mostly melted (about 3 minutes). Hit it with a stick blender until emulsified. Done.
Second, if you want a really strong cheddar flavor, use 225g extra sharp cheddar (8 oz.) and 75g mild blue cheese like a gorgonzola (nothing expensive), and leave out the salt. The blue cheese really ramps up the tanginess of the cheddar without overpowering it. If you look at the ingredients for most cheddar cheese flavored snacks you'll see this trick used all the time. I also prefer to reduce the milk to 275g because the full 300g makes the sauce too watery.
How long will this hold in the fridge? i usually make a sauce with a roux, add milk, Velveeta and some other things and after it cools, is good for a week or 2 in the fridge. How long will this last and will it pick up odd flavors?
is it possible to make it without phosphate? In italy is impossible to find it
You can do a version that is very close by reducing white wine and using that, lots of natural phosphates in it. But it will taste strongly of wine! But I see that as a bonus.
Kyl …. How much wine? Reduced how much ( also I only have citric acid will that work in place of the salt from citric acid?) save me Kyl!
No need for citric acid IMO, the amount all depends on the size of the batch. I have used a ratio of one 750ml bottle, reduced to 25% and I add that to a liter of milk. The amount of cheese is up to you, how ever I do recommend a more melty style of cheese for this hack, like mozzarella or a soft cheese. Good luck
Does any one know where I can find SHMP in Canada? I’m having a hard time finding it.
As far as I know https://modernistpantry.com ships to Canada.
Thanks, Kyl!
I did give them a look, but was hoping to find something more… local haha.
Haven’t had much luck.
Thanks for the suggestion
Has Anyone tried to add a beer flavor to this formula? I would like to make a beer cheese dip for pretzel Bites, I'm wondering how the beer will or if it will hurt the formula...
Has anyone tried putting the finished sauce in a whip syphon?
This worked out amazingly well. The emulsification was exceptional. This is my go-to method from here on. Next time I will try using the whip syphon.
@Kyl
Hey @Kyl Haselbauer , would you recommend this approach for cheese fondue? Instead of milk and shmp just use wine?
I would reduce 300ml of white wine to 100g, and replace 100g of the milk with the wine. To replace the shmp
based on the amount of cheese I had I upped the ml of reduced wine and it worked out beautifully. even at high temperatures the fondue didnt split and was velvety smooth all the way through, thanks!
I make yogurt with dairy in my sous vide at 105 degrees for 36 hours. And have for years.
