Sodium Citrate Mac & Cheese — Silky Smooth

with the use of a cheap common food additive you can make the most delicious mac and cheese you've ever had it'll have the gooey silky smooth quality of processed cheese combined with the deep complex flavor of real cheese basically this is a fancier version of my dad's mac and cheese which is made with processed American cheese first that additive sodium citrate I ordered this from a major internet retailer it tastes like salt but slightly sour it's perfectly safe it's in tons of stuff that you probably eat we'll use some of that in combination with a pound of cheese any cheese I'm grating up half a pound of Gruyere and half a pound of smoked gouda I think any strong semi firm cheese would work great with this put some water on the boil for pasta now for the cheese sauce you need a quart of any water-based liquid dad uses milk I'm gonna use three cups of milk and one cup of white wine because that's the kind of thing I would do goes into a saucepan on medium heat and then the magic ingredient one tablespoon plus one teaspoon of sodium citrate same as four teaspoons this is the stuff that's already in the American cheese my dad uses it's an emulsifier it'll stop the fat in the cheese from separating out as it melts the first time I tried this I use two full tablespoons roughly extrapolating the proportions from a popular recipe on the Internet and look what happened the sauce came out way too viscous it boiled over it settled on top and kind of broke after it cooled the texture was dry and almost chalky don't use that much sodium citrate with just four teaspoons this recipe comes out perfect then some seasoning I put in half a teaspoon each of mustard powder and garlic powder little shake of cayenne for chef John and then some black pepper dad just uses the black pepper but put in whatever flavorings you want at this stage just probably don't put in any more salt sodium citrate is a salt and the cheese is naturally salty too then I put in half a stick of butter cold all in one chunk I want this to melt slowly we're trying to form an emulsion here like making mayonnaise if you introduce too much fat all at it could break all the fats would just separate into a big oil slick now I'm just gonna whisk in a handful of cheese one at a time nice and slow for the same exact reason there are recipes online that tell you to do this with an immersion blender to make the emulsion form that is manifestly unnecessary as you can see whisking does the job just fine this went slowly for me at first but I had all the cheese in after five minutes I didn't wait until each handful was fully melted I just waited until it was melty if you don't use the sodium citrate or a processed cheese that already has it in there you have to use something like a butter and flour roux to thicken and stabilize this sauce by stabilizing me and keep the fats from separating out but in my opinion mac and cheese made with a roux based cheese sauce always disappoints the texture is just gritty this sauce is gonna be way better you don't even need to bring it to a simmer or anything because we're gonna bake it just get everything melted in and turn off the heat my dad uses large shells I'm gonna try these pipe thingies I hope that's not actually pronounced to Pete pay or something salt the water and power boil for five minutes only I've said before that I think any pasta shape is fine but dad wanted me to say that the best thing is a hollow or concave shape that'll hold cheese sauce in each bite drain it after five minutes and then I'm just gonna bake it in the same oven safe pot that I boiled in spray it or butter it or something pasta goes back in then the sauce and give it a stir cover it up and it goes in at 350 Fahrenheit for 45 minutes covered after that uncover it and bake until brown on top about another half hour pull it out and let it cool down for 20 or 30 minutes until you scoop it out you could do a breadcrumb topping on this by the way but I prefer to just let the cheese brown and let the top layer of shells or P pays or whatever go all crunchy that tastes insanely good I would however replace the grier next time with sharp cheddar this needs strong cheese I think and look at the texture as I squeeze that sauce out it is as velvety as nuclear orange nacho cheese but with a totally grown up sophisticated cheese flavor I never make this any other way again don't be scared by this unfamiliar ingredient order some and give it a chance

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 1,165,750

Rating: 4.9445615 out of 5

Keywords: cheese, sodium, citrate, processed, smooth, silky, shells, mac, macaroni, butter, sauce, baked, crunchy, brown, browned, sodium citrate

Id: KcM_MZoJWOo

Length: 4min 36sec (276 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/stonewall24]

Finally, a Mac and cheese recipe with white wine!