An other week has gone by already! A lot of cool stuff has happened too, friendships are building, people are getting more comfortable around each other in class. Good times. So let's get to it
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Iron Chef PittsburghpriceSeptember 27 2004, 00:32:15 UTC
Gwee, man, cheese sauce is made by forming a suspension of the cheese molecules...
See, cheese is made up of these protein strands called casein, and proteins are kind of like... hmmm... the sticks in a beaver's dam. They're all facing the same way and tightly interconnected, and this holds them in solid form.
If you heat cheese, these bonds loosen and the cheese melts a bit. Unfortunately, with most cheeses (such as cheddar) the casein doesn't permanently break. As soon as you stop heating it, it starts clumping back up, as you noticed.
So, what you need to do is suspend the cheese in something that'll prevent those bonds from reforming, and pad those proteins so they won't clump together... Hmmm... what to pick...
Well, let's see... Cheese is made by drying out curd, which is the solid(ish), proteinaceous part of milk. We normally manage to prevent milk from curdling (separating into curd and whey) by homogenizing it, which basically means breaking up the milkfat molecules that separate out into cream with the protein. So... That gives me an idea:
I would presume that milks with higher fat content, particularly whole milk, would produce better cheese sauce. I'd even go so far as to recommend adding a little bit of butter to the sauce to increase fat content, and give it a nice shiny gloss.
That said, carrots are _so_ not the vegetable for this dish. Onion, celery, lettuce... Any green vegetable would work great. So would bell peppers, for that matter.
See, cheese is made up of these protein strands called casein, and proteins are kind of like... hmmm... the sticks in a beaver's dam. They're all facing the same way and tightly interconnected, and this holds them in solid form.
If you heat cheese, these bonds loosen and the cheese melts a bit. Unfortunately, with most cheeses (such as cheddar) the casein doesn't permanently break. As soon as you stop heating it, it starts clumping back up, as you noticed.
So, what you need to do is suspend the cheese in something that'll prevent those bonds from reforming, and pad those proteins so they won't clump together... Hmmm... what to pick...
Well, let's see... Cheese is made by drying out curd, which is the solid(ish), proteinaceous part of milk. We normally manage to prevent milk from curdling (separating into curd and whey) by homogenizing it, which basically means breaking up the milkfat molecules that separate out into cream with the protein. So... That gives me an idea:
Cheese + milk (not skim) + heat + stirring = cheese sauce!
I would presume that milks with higher fat content, particularly whole milk, would produce better cheese sauce. I'd even go so far as to recommend adding a little bit of butter to the sauce to increase fat content, and give it a nice shiny gloss.
That said, carrots are _so_ not the vegetable for this dish. Onion, celery, lettuce... Any green vegetable would work great. So would bell peppers, for that matter.
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