Modernist Cuisine Mac & Cheese | Make Your Own “Top Shelf” Processed Cheese Block

I’ve been waiting like a 6 year old for Christmas for my copy of Modernist Cuisine. Thanks to the wonderful Chris Amirault on eGullet, I was able to make the Modernist Cuisine Mac & Cheese while waiting for my copy of the opus (which I’ve finally received the shipping email notification on). The underlying theme of this recipe is to create your own processed cheese that will be “break proof” (you can even boil it and it won’t separate into globs of cheese and fat) but made from high quality cheese rather than unripe scraps, etc. Imagine having a homemade processed block of cheese in your freezer that will melt and be as stable as Velveeta, but made with a fine aged Cheddar and Gouda. You need to have a couple of “chemicals” on hand; but they are ingredients that have been used in certain areas of the world for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It’s just recently that we have them available in a shelf stable, convenient form. When I did a medical school rotation in Scotland (many years ago), the wonderful 80 year old woman that befriended me made me a traditional island pudding that had been made for centuries from carrageenan in seaweed that she harvested, dried, and processed herself. So, you can’t get away with saying this is made with mad scientist chemicals – it’s actually old school, many Americans just aren’t familiar with the wonderful properties of these ingredients. As Chris Hennes on eGullet so eruditely put it:
“No, this isn't some kind of play on words, or a joke-recipe, or some kind of fascinating modernist creation. It's just macaroni and cheese. This recipe is a clear demonstration that while you can use modernist ingredients to create some really crazy stuff, you can also apply them to simply take a classic dish and make it better. And believe me when I say it: this version of mac and cheese is so vastly, clearly superior to anything I've ever had it is mind boggling.
There are two keys to the dish, both related to problems with the original: the first is that when you make a cheese sauce with a béchamel base, you have to use a LOT of béchamel, and there is a limit to how much cheese you can add before it breaks. This winds up diluting the cheese flavor, and is part of the reason I would never consider making a traditional mac and cheese with a really great cheese: its subtlety would simply be lost, and you'd gain nothing over using a simpler cheese. The second key is that not only does béchamel dilute the cheese flavor purely by volume, it also has poor "flavor release" compared to, say, carrageenan: the book spends a great deal of time talking about this sort of thing, and it's very helpful for understanding why these techniques work as well as they do.
So, the modernist version of the dish does away with the béchamel base: instead, you make a small amount of a solution of beer, water, sodium citrate (to emulsify the cheese) and carrageenan (the thicken the sauce). You then melt a huge quantity of excellent cheese into it (I used Cabot clothbound cheddar and Roomano Pradera Gouda), in effect making your own processed cheese block. You chill it down until you literally have a block of processed cheese more or less the consistency of Velveeta, and then you shred it. The pasta is cooked in just enough water for it to absorb, and then the shredded cheese product is stirred in. You wind up with a mac and cheese the same texture as if you had used Velveeta: perfectly, flawlessly smooth. Except it tastes incredibly intensely like the best cheeses in the world! Perhaps you have gathered here that I rather liked the stuff. If this is "Modernist" then consider me modernified.”
When I read this, I was hooked! Unfortunately, when I was shopping for the cheese for this recipe, Whole Foods was having a bad cheese day; my result was good, but not transcendent. The Cabot clothbound Cheddar isn’t available until Friday, and I need to search for a good, aged Gouda. Anyway, the results were still phenomenal.


I found the Sodium Citrate and Iota Carrageenan on Amazon.com. I already had a precision scale for my natural perfume work.





Uniodized, please.


These are decent, but could be improved on.


About 140 g each cheese.


Wheat beer plus (not shown) 100g water.


Melted like a dream.


Looks just like Velveeta, but smells divine.


Wrapped up to freeze to aid in grating.


For two servings; cooked for 7 min. in 300 g water and 2.4 g salt. With this “low water” pasta method, you don’t drain the pasta, but the small amount of pasta water left in the pot when the pasta is al dente is used to make the sauce.


Roughly 1/2 the block of processed cheese grated. Even though I pretreated my box grater with Pam (perish the thought), I still made a streaky mess. I think next time (as I read on the forum topic), I’ll just cube the cheese. I like a cheese wire for soft cheese such as this, and I think it will work well. The processed cheese melts so beautifully, you could almost throw a huge chunk in there and have it turn out well.


I served this with the wheat beer used to make the sauce in a frosted mug. Once your processed cheese in made, this mac & cheese is nearly as convenient as the blue box. By the time you boil the water and cook your pasta (maybe 10 min. total depending on your cooktop); you can have your cheese grated or cubed, and your plates warmed. I’ve lain awake at night thinking of all the ways to use this “break proof” processed cheese: nearly instant cheese sauce for vegetables, fool-proof fondue, bow-down-and-worship-me Rotel cheese dip! (When I was growing up, my mother always cooked from scratch. I’ve never tasted boxed mac & cheese, Hamburger Helper, etc. I never thought Velveeta would cross my lips until an old grade school friend from Louisiana made me try Velveeta-Rotel dip on a visit during my college days) I can’t wait to bring this to a party and see the stunned reaction.
Whole Foods is supposed to carry Cabot clothbound cheddar on Friday, I imagine I’ll be there the minute they open. I may even add a soupçon of dry mustard and cayenne to my next batch. I have a premonition that my signature processed cheese will be a staple in my freezer for the rest of my days.

Egg & Herb Ricotta Ravioli

I was trying to think of some way to use up some leftover ricotta and decided to make egg yolk ravioli again. I adapted the filling from this delicious days days post.

 

And I’ve been looking forward to using the new ravioli mold my husband got for me.

 

Giant sage leaves (my herbs love their EarthBoxes), oregano, a little thyme, Parmigianino Reggiano, ricotta, nutmeg, extra virgin olive oil, pepper & salt for the filling.

 

I love this attachment for the microplane grater.

 

And this mini chopper my mother found for me at a garage sale.

 

It works well when you need herbs very finely and evenly chopped.

 

Ready to mix all the filling ingredients together.

 

I put this in the refrigerator to let the flavors meld while I made the pasta dough.

 

While surfing for egg yolk ravioli variations, I found a great post on total food processor pasta dough (no kneading) and was anxious to try it. The instructions may look overwhelming, but the actual method is easy and the detailed instructions are to help insure success and troubleshoot any problems. I found a similar post here – the instructions aren’t as detailed, but there are some helpful photos of the stages involved to show you what to expect.

 

 

Either the instructions were very good, or I’m very lucky. The dough was wonderful to work with on my first attempt. Not too sticky, not too dry.

 

No cracks, easy to handle with minimal flour.

 

Unfortunately, I put in a little too much of the filling trying to make a nice nest for the yolks. I tore the back, right “sling” while pushing the filling low enough to leave room for the yolk and the yolk slipped out the side.

 

I managed to retrieve the yolk from the counter by moistening the spoonula and my fingers with egg white and easing the yolk up onto the spoonula. As the ravioli with the yolks are so rich, I decided to only use eight. I put a sprinkle of P-R on each yolk to protect it while adding the top layer of dough. I used a pastry brush to paint some reserved egg white beaten with a bit of water to seal the dough.

 

I was afraid to push too hard with the rolling pin and risk disrupting the yolks so I sealed the dough by pressing along the seams and cutting them apart with a knife run along the cutting ridges.

 

One of the yolked raviola blew apart when I flipped the form over – hence the smeared yolk on the parchment paper. I also discarded the one the rescued yolk had escaped from. (It’s best to start this recipe with lots of extra eggs.)

 

I cut up some odd pieces of my pancetta-style bacon into near-lardons.

 

While cooking the bacon I made beurre noisette.

 

Then I fried some small sage leaves in the bacon fat for garnish.

 

Served with the beurre noisette, bacon, fried sage and a sprinkle of P-R. I wish I had thought to cut into one  and photograph it before my husband and I ate all of them. Oh well, it looked a lot like my first egg yolk ravioli:

 

I had enough filling and pasta left over to use the other, smaller form that my husband also got for me.

 

No yolks this time. I will freeze these for another day.

 

I love the little rolling pin that came with this form.

Headline Photo | Egg Yolk Ravioli

While the latest batch of bacon is curing, I wanted to write  about the egg yolk ravioli in the headline photo.

I’ve always loved egg yolks and was inspired to try the ravioli by Michael Ruhlman’s post The Tenderness of Pasta.  The last sentence of his introduction got me, “The yellow ooze is worth the effort”.

Checking around on the internet, I found a post by Eunny (Post #59 near the bottom of the page) that sounded great to me. I used my pancetta-flavored hickory smoked bacon, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and basil since I had them on hand; rather than pancetta, Pecorino Romano and sage. 

The yellow ooze was worth it.

 

Cracked-pepper pasta.

 

Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.  Here you can see my lovely sky blue Formica counter-top from the 70’s that stains at a hard glance.

 

A snack for the cook. A basil leaf on a shard of P-R is quite tasty.

 

Rolling the pasta…

 

until thin enough.

 

Yolks on a bed, and with a protective cap, of P-R.

 

 

Some air pockets, but not too bad.

 

Set loose from their neighbors with a pastry cutter.

 

Lardons from my bacon ends that were too odd-sized to slice...

 

frying.

 

Ready to brown the butter for the  sauce with chiffonade of basil to garnish.

 

Ready to eat after boiling the pasta two minutes, drizzling with beurre noisette, and garnishing with the basil and fried lardons.  You don’t want to cook the yolk too much.

 

Ah, there it is, the yellow ooze!