Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Recently I saw sodium citrate glowingly mentioned on a food blog -- supposedly it's a miracle ingredient for keeping queso melty and making mac and cheese even creamier. And being the sucker I am for new/oddball ingredients that I often only use once or twice, of course I ordered it from Amazon. (Redeeming factor is it was only $8 with Prime).

So I'm wondering if any of you have used it for anything cheese-related or otherwise. Unfortunately although I'm game for trying new/different ingredients, I'm seriously disabled when it comes to thinking outside the box and coming up with recipe alterations on my own. And given that the packaging follows "Enhances flavor, preserves food, reduces acidity" with "For best results follow recipe directions" I'm somewhat at a loss, beyond the cheese sauce.

Thanks!

Emilie

I have used sodium citrate to make modernist mac and cheese and also to make fondue. They both turned out well. I can give you the ratios from MC@H tonight if it would be helpful. I will warn you that the melty cheese calculator on the Modernist Cuisine site is off. Very, very off. Don't use it.

There is a very short video on Chowhound that you might want to look at as well (it lead me to the calculator, so don't do that). http://www.chow.com/videos/show/mdrn-kt ... lty-cheese

--Lisa

Thanks Lisa. I did see a recipe on Chow for nachos that called for it. I think the modernist movement is beyond me, both mathematically (it's a well-established fact that PR people can't do math) and due to the fact that I'm not a very adventurous cook/eater. But any tips are most welcome!

Emilie

Is this a good time to mention that I have a B.S. in PR?

You can do this. I'll PM you a recipe to try out.

--Lisa

Emilie, here's an explanation of what sodium citrate does. I thought it was the same as citric acid (sour salt) which I have for sourdough breads, but it is not. It turns out you can make sodium citrate by using baking soda and citirc acid according to you tube ). I've not tried it. I believe to make the modernist mac and cheese you also need carragenan. I have MCAH but want to make the original modernist mac and cheese so need to find it the original. There is a post in Culinary in Facebook about this.

Lisa love it that your BS is in PR. I thought maybe is was CS.

My first job out of college was PR / Marcomm for a startup software company, thus starting my long, slow slide to geekdom. I work in an engineering group now.

--Lisa

That it quite the trip. BS is pretty appropriate for PR I would have thought, though, that it would be a BA, despite the lack of poetry.

Oh that's a hoot, Lisa. You must be special. I've been at it for almost 35 years and have only come across a handful of communications brains that work that way. (One of my close friends was a very successful corporate PR executive and she would always call her accountant husband when she needed to figure out a fraction.)

And Paul, your impression of PR must be based on the people who say that's what they do but actually have no concept of what it really is. Should you want the real deal, read on:

As a management function, public relations encompasses the following:

- Anticipating, analyzing and interpreting public opinion, attitudes and issues that might impact, for good or ill, the operations and plans of the organization.

- Counseling management at all levels in the organization with regard to policy decisions, courses of action and communication, taking into account their public ramifications and the organization’s social or citizenship responsibilities.

- Researching, conducting and evaluating, on a continuing basis, programs of action and communication to achieve the informed public understanding necessary to the success of an organization’s aims. These may include marketing; financial; fund raising; employee, community or government relations; and other programs.

- Planning and implementing the organization’s efforts to influence or change public policy. Setting objectives, planning, budgeting, recruiting and training staff, developing facilities — in short, managing the resources needed to perform all of the above.[/i]

Thanks, that would be great!

Emilie

Actually I worked closely with a (extremely excellent) PR person for quite a few years. She was extremely instrumental in the companies success. She also could make a silk purse out of a sows ear and was damn good at BS . I'm pretty decent myself, having had to sell my ideas many many times to clients and management, I often get to be the technical spokesperson for things when they need someone who 'sounds good'. I'm good at sounding authoritative on technical topics. What qualifies as a BS degree vs. BA is a matter of wildly varying opinion, of course, and I tend to be in the camp of more 'hard science' should be marked "S", but obviously opinions (and universities!) vary.