Food Science Factoids:
Cheese Sauces:
I'm obsessed with making cheese sauces at the moment. #1: It stays liquid / melted longer than melted cheese, so the semi-liquid state has MUCH MORE FLAVOR. #2: There are some flavor caramelizations occurring during the sauce making, more based on the roux cooking stage if you use butter. #3: You can add spices to your choosing/customization. Even just black pepper tastes amazing. Maybe consider jalapenos if that's your thing. The possibilities are limitless.
To start with, I've been enjoying my cheese sauce melted on sandwiches, melted on nacho chips, and stirred into a casserole of sorts. Combine your meal with a smear of black garlic, or incorporate the black garlic directly into the sauce recipe (I am planning to try this next, but I don't mind keeping the two separate, to maintain the contrast in flavors which is possibly more enjoyable.)
Here's my cheese sauce tips/recipe:
Overview:
1. You are doing french cooking (fancy) when you make a cheese sauce. (Good to know. Hats off to you.)
This all might sound complicated, but it's actually really easy and hard to mess up.
2. There are two french bases in a cheese sauce: (1) Roux and (2) Bechemel
3. Roux is flour and butter, traditionally. Also traditionally, the ratio of flour to butter is 1:1, although many folks do 1:2 (more butter) for a creamier sauce. I find olive oil is a healthy and creamy option in place of butter, but because olive has no sugar like lactose, you won't get any caramelization with olive oil alone.
4. Bechemel = Roux + Cream (but I use milk to keep it healthier, along with olive oil in place of butter.) The traditional ratio is 8 parts cream/milk to 1 part roux.
5. Food science: the wheat flour will thicken the water in the milk or cream (whichever you choose.) If you go with a light or heavy cream, the thickening by the flour will be less, because there is more fat in the cream.
6. Cheese component: this tends to determine your batch size. So far, I've been using an 8oz block of extra sharp cheddar, so my quantities of the other ingredients are based on my cheddar quantity. You need to have a gram-scale. The traditional ratio of cheese to "bechemel" is 2 parts cheese:1 part bechemel. Finally, you get to use your algebra skills.
Steps:
1. Weigh three ingredients. (1) Flour, (2) olive oil or butter or other fat, (3) milk or cream. No need to weigh the cheese if you use the entire package, but you should chop the cheese or even shred the cheese to make it easier to melt.
2. Melt the butter (or pour olive oil into warm small kettle.)
3. Making the roux:
Stir with a fork (or whisk) the flour into the liquid fat (aka oil) in your pot. Fully disperse the flour evenly. Use low heat. This step will prevent flour clumping in the milk/cream in the next step.
4. Making the bechemel:
Add the milk/cream while stirring (especially stir the bottom of the kettle to avoid scorching) with a whisk or fork. I increase the temperature to medium/medium low and stir rapidly. Continue to heat on medium to a boil and rapidly turn off the heat. The bechemel will foam briefly. You can lower the heat and keep stirring for 2 minutes to better gelatinize the flour. Or just add the cheese now.
5. Secret idea by David F the Food Scientist: use a thermo-reversible thickener such as agar in place of flour, which is not thermo-reversible if you want to get better reheating of the sauce if you plan to refrigerate a portion of your sauce. The proteins in the milk and cheese are thermo-reversible, so the replacement of flour is not super-necessary.
6. Add the chopped or shredded cheese and fully melt/homogenize with the heat on low. It may take about 5 minutes while stirring. Do not scorch/burn the bottom of the kettle-ingredients.
7. Enjoy! This works for any cheese, although some cheeses can be slightly gritty, but still nice.