Modernist Mac and Cheese

Modernist Cuisine is one of the biggest cookbook releases in recent memory, and the general consensus is that the acclaim is well deserved. Unfortunately for me, costing about $500, I won't be getting it anytime soon. However, one dish that caught my eye from reading some of the press is the Modernist Mac and Cheese, and I was able to find a few recipes for it online.

The idea behind this dish is using high quality cheeses, while making a perfectly smooth and creamy sauce. You essentially are making the best velveeta you've had. With a normal roux-based cheese sauce, adding too much cheese will cause the sauce to break. This recipe uses sodium citrate to stabilize the cheeses, which also allows you to use traditionally non-melting cheeses. It also uses iota carrageegan to thicken the cheese sauce. I used three different cheeses for this recipe: a pungent, mature white cheddar, a slightly softer, nutty Dutch Robusto, and an extremely nutty, hard 5-year aged Gouda.



For the liquid component of the sauce, water and wheat beer were used.



The, sodium citrate and carrageegan was added to the beer mixture, followed by the cheese. As the sauce heats through, the cheese melts completely smooth.



From there, you are supposed to freeze the cheese and grate it when you need to use it. I made it in advance, so when it was time to eat, I cooked the pasta and added the cheese sauce.



We served the pasta with a simple salad. The mac and cheese turned out to be really delicious. The cheese is very intense, much cheesier than any other mac and cheese that I've had. I think I would use a more typical, sharper cheddar next time, as all three cheese were quite nutty. Others have frozen the cheese for lengths of time without negative effects, so it can make for an incredibly easy dinner. We will definitely be making this in the future, experimenting with other cheese blends.

Nice!

My own most recent version of extremely cheesy mac and cheese that seems a bit less fussy dates from 1865. http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/civil_ ... nd_cheese/

I do it in the microwave to update it a bit.

Mhays wrote:My own most recent version of extremely cheesy mac and cheese that seems a bit less fussy dates from 1865. http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/civil_ ... nd_cheese/

Do you have to melt the cheese in the pan or do you think it would work putting the grated cheese into the hot macaroni and mixing well? I also wonder if you need the butter, and if you could put the spices into the milk when you cook the macaroni to infuse throughout... Ah - read your blog - looks like my questions are answered

Dlongs wrote:Modernist Cuisine is one of the biggest cookbook releases in recent memory, and the general consensus is that the acclaim is well deserved. Unfortunately for me, costing about $500, I won't be getting it anytime soon. However, one dish that caught my eye from reading some of the press is the Modernist Mac and Cheese, and I was able to find a few recipes for it online.

For me, MC was a combined father's day, birthday, Christmas (and because of the delays in publication), and Valentine's day gift. Now all I need to save for is the $20K worth of new appliances I would like to buy.

Mhays wrote:Nice!

My own most recent version of extremely cheesy mac and cheese that seems a bit less fussy dates from 1865. http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/civil_ ... nd_cheese/

I do it in the microwave to update it a bit.

My wife (and other family members) looks down her nose at mere cheddar Mac 'n Cheese, even 10 yr. old cheddar. (Go figure) So I've come up with several cheese mixtures that are pretty good. The problem is that they tend to break, being high in fat content. So the modernist additions are helpful at preventing that.

I usually wind up using a combination of cheeses, though I've found that the higher-fat ones prevent breaking more than cause it - I think it's the acidity, which tends to be higher in older or more highly flavored cheese. I also find that there are cheeses that lose their character in a sauce; one of my pet peeves is Brie M&C, which frequently winds up tasting like a gooey bland white sauce.

However, your modernist trick can be approximated by using evaporated milk (though now I'm thinking I may cut mine w/beer instead of water, good idea) which contains carrageegan and dipotassium phosphate which acts pretty much like your sodium citrate.

Essentially, adding gelatin or gelatin-like starches (technically carrageenan works via starch rather than protein) is the key to keeping cheese sauces from breaking - Serious Eats has this terrific article on homemade "American Cheese," which is basically a mornay-sauce jello-shot.