The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 882

memory, and a powerful one It’s the texture that does it for me No other mac ’n’ cheese I’ve had has been quite so velvety smooth as the Kraft original That said, in absolute terms, it does leave a bit to be desired in the flavor department The ultimate goal? A cheese sauce with the creamy, gooey, oozy consistency of the blue box version but all the complex flavor of real cheese Gimme a Break! Cheese melts, right? So why not just throw some cheddar cheese into a pot with the pasta and heat it until it’s at perfect sauce consistency? Anyone who’s tried it can tell you: the cheese breaks, greasy slicks forming over a watery layer, with clumps of tough, rubbery cheese strands stuck together It’s not a pretty picture In order to understand why that happens, let’s take a closer look at exactly what cheese is made of: • Water is present to varying degrees Young cheeses like Jack, young cheddars, and mozzarella have a relatively high water content—up to 80 percent The longer a cheese is aged, the more moisture it loses, and the harder it becomes Famous hard cheeses, like Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano, may contain as little as 30 percent water after several years of aging • Milk fat in solid cheese is dispersed in the form of microscopic globules kept suspended in a tight matrix of protein micelles (more on those in a second) Under around 90°F, this fat is solid Because of this, and because of their suspension, these tiny globules don’t come into contact with each other to form larger globules: cheeses stay creamy or crumbly, instead of greasy • Protein micelles are spherical bundles of milk proteins Individual milk proteins (the main ones are four similar molecules called caseins) resemble little tadpoles with hydrophobic (water-avoiding) heads, and hydrophillic (water-seeking) tails These proteins come together headfirst in bundles of several thousand, protecting their hydrophobic heads and exposing their hydrophillic tails to their watery surroundings These micelles link together into long chains, forming a matrix that gives the cheese its structure • Salt and other flavorings make up the rest of the cheese Salt can have a profound effect on the texture—saltier cheeses have had more moisture drawn out of the curd before being pressed, so they tend to be drier and firmer Other flavorful compounds present in cheese are mostly intentional by-products of bacteria and aging  ... proteins (the main ones are four similar molecules called caseins) resemble little tadpoles with hydrophobic (water-avoiding) heads, and hydrophillic (water-seeking) tails These proteins come together... thousand, protecting their hydrophobic heads and exposing their hydrophillic tails to their watery surroundings These micelles link together into long chains, forming a matrix that gives the cheese its... Salt and other flavorings make up the rest of the cheese Salt can have a profound effect on the texture—saltier cheeses have had more moisture drawn out of the curd before being pressed, so they tend to be drier and firmer