It’s 3-Michelin Stars vs the most scientific kitchen on he planet! We put Heston’s Macaroni Cheese recipe, from Heston at Home, against the version from Modrnist Cuisine at Home
We’re big fans of the Modernist Cuisine blog here at insearchofheston. Their site is the closest I’ll get to the recipes – unless someone buys me the Modernist Cuisine At Home book for my birthday (hint, hint).
The original Modernist Cuisine book has a pretty strong Heston Blumenthal link: two of its key contributors helped create the In Search of Perfection series. And, from what we’ve seen online, their recipes are the natural evolution of the scientific approach to cooking that defines a lot of Heston’s work. Albeit with the backing of a guy worth $650 million.
One of the things we like most about their recipes is the user-friendliness. Take the Modernist Cuisine Macaroni Cheese recipe, for example. 4 ingredients and a cooking time of less than 20 minutes. But how does it fare against Heston’s Macaroni Cheese recipe?
SUMMARY
Recipes: Modernist Cuisine Macaroni Cheese recipe / Heston Blumenthal Macaroni Cheese recipe
Special Equipment: Immersion / stick blender
Special Ingredients: Sodium Citrate
Time: 20 minutes
Cost: £4 (or £13 if you need to buy Sodium Citrate online)
Serves: 2
Difficulty: Very Easy
Sodium Citrate is the key ingredient that makes this recipe work. We bought a big 100g box from creamsupplies.co.uk, as we’ll be needing it to make the cheese slices in Heston’s Perfect Hamburger recipe.
For a one-off purchase we’ve seen small sachets of unflavoured Sodium Citrate on sale in Superdrug in the UK (it’s commonly sold as a cranberry-flavoured cystitis treatment!).
We’ve already cooked a couple of Heston’s Macaroni cheese recipes: Heston’s Cauliflower Cheese Macaroni recipe here, and then his more traditional truffled Macaroni Cheese recipe which we pitted against the Hawksmoor variant.
Rather than give you yet another blow-by-blow account of the Heston Macaroni Cheese recipe we’re just doing the Modernist one, and digging some our leftover Heston Mac n’ Cheese out of the freezer.
REPORT
Step 1: Boiling the pasta
I presume we’re all comfortable with the process of boiling pasta? Good. Then I won’t waste your time discussing it. We used this spiral shape stuff because we were frankly bored of cooking plain old macaroni.
As with all novelty pasta shapes we buy, I look forward to discovering the half-empty bag in the back of the cupboard in a few years’ time.
Step 2: Cheese Sauce
It’s kind of ridiculous how easy this sauce is to make. Weigh sodium citrate and milk (or water, if you’re some kind of puritan) into a pan. Put it on the hob, then start blending with your immersion blender and throw in your cheese.
The cheese will melt faster and smoother the more finely you grate it. Add a handful at a time.
As you blend the sauce will develop a bubbly, aerated appearance. This is nothing to worry about. Most of those bubbles will disappear. If you really object to them just skim the surface.
Step 3: Finishing
Then just add boiled, drained pasta into the cheese sauce. That’s really all there is to it.
VERDICT
In these photos the Modernist Cuisine Macaroni Cheese recipe sauce looks slightly thin and runny. It isn’t. This sauce just looks that way because it is so staggeringly smooth.
That smooth texture was the winning element of Heston’s Macaroni Cheese recipe. Unfortunately the flavour in Heston’s recipe, which comes from a relatively small amount of parmesan, was kinda weak. Certainly not as punchy or flavoursome as the Hawksmoor Macaroni Cheese recipe. Here’s Heston’s recipe (left) next to the Hawksmoor variant (right):
With more than a full block of mature cheddar this recipe certainly doesn’t skimp on the cheesiness. But, with so few ingredients, the quality of cheese you use will be the deciding factor in the flavour of the final dish.
For smoothness, refinement, flavour and, above all, convenience this is probably the best Macaroni Cheese recipe we’ve made so far.
NEXT TIME
Well, starch and fat fans, I think we really are on the cusp of a genuinely “perfect” Macaroni Cheese recipe.
We would probably adapt this recipe to use the ratios of Stilton, Gruyere and Cheddar as recommended by Hawksmoor, and we might replace the milk base with the stock and wine reduction used by Heston. Or a wheat beer, which seems to be the fashionable approach these days.
A thick layer of cheese and breadcrumbs, followed by a quick trip under the grill, and this could be our perfect macaroni cheese recipe.
Further Reading
Have you made any of these recipes, or is there one classic macaroni cheese recipe that you swear by? Use the comments section to tell us about it.
But what IS sodium citrate..?
It’s a sodium salt of citric acid.
HTH
Thanks for the link to my blog! Great comparison post. This is making me want to whip up another batch of cheesy pasta – your photos look very inviting!
Thanks for the kind words Christine!
If you can get your hands on some sodium citrate this dish becomes amazingly easy to whip up and incredibly versatile.
Thanks for reviewing this! I’m a new reader here, and honestly I’ve really been wanting to try the Modernist Cuisine macaroni for a while now.
All the pictures that I’ve seen makes it look runny or like Kraft box macaroni so I’ve been hesitant to try it.
I’ll definitely give it a shot if you say it’s good, though! The Hawksmoor recipe that I found from here was truly amazing
Hi Alice! Thanks for the reading and for the kind words.
The flavour of that Hawksmoor recipe is great isn’t it!
A word of warning: we just tried the modernist citrate method with the Hawksmoor cheese ratio – 1/2 cheddar, 1/4 gruyere, 1/4 stilton- and the stilton was waaaaay overpowering. We’d suggest 1/8th Stilton or remove it completely. Or use Gorgonzola. We LOVE Gorgonzola.
Please let us know if you try it.
For what it’s worth, Hawksmoor seem to have ditched the blue cheese from their restaurant macaroni cheese. The last two times I’ve ordered it as a side, it hasn’t had any in.
Are there any other uses for sodium citrate beyond this, and making plastic cheese slices (which I’m unlikely to ever bother doing)? Kinda reluctant to buy 1kg of the stuff!
Tried the Heston method last night but with a different cheese mix: 80/20 cheddar to smoked cheddar, with ham hock mixed in and parmesan/breadcrumbs on top. Very nice, and as you say, nowhere near as gloopy as using a thick bechamel.
Hi, really enjoy the blog and am desperate to try this recipe out but am struggling to find the sodium citrate. The link above creamsupplies.co.uk sells trisodium citrate (Citras by Texturas) is this a suitable alternative?
Thanks
Hi Phil!
Sodium Tricitrate should work fine (I think), and the texturas brand is about as safe a bet as you can get.
If you don’t want to splurge that much, Superdrug previously used to sell an unflavoured cystitis that is exactly the same thing. If they still sell it, and if its convenient for you to get to a branch I’d say definitely check.
We went and bought something like a kilo on eBay. It comes in a big scary-looking white tub, but that’s only because it’s a pure chemical. This method is now the only way we’ll make mac n’ cheese, so we reckon it was a wise investment.
Let us know how your experiments turn out, and hope the results are delicious!
Amazing and helpful thank you
Hello
I am LOVING your work. Living in the DR Congo and while I have cooked the whole ISOP recepies in the past, your thinking has really helped my older and grumpier self.
Are you still going?
If so, I wonder if you could help out with the cheese ratio? Many of the online licences seem to have expired, and I was trying to work out cheese amounts for the Heston wine and stock option, if I want a punchier sauce.
Did you ever work out your ideal balance?
I see here – 1/2 cheddar, 1/4 Gruyere, 1/4 Stilton (maybe better ratio with Gorgonzola) – but where is the parmasan in all that? the first post said the Hawmoor’s recipe called for 500gms of parm. seems a lot. Was that cheese overall?
thanks!
PS: i LOVE gorgonzola too!
Hey there!
Big love and respect for the kind words!!! Afraid I’d have to dig the recipe books out to find out the real ratios. If you like parmesan then Hawksmoor’s recipe here is the one for you! https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/meat-and-poultry/beef-shin-macaroni/
From what I remember the modernist cuisine recipe is a good substitute for Heston’s. At least it let’s you play around with Sodium Citrate. https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/silky-smooth-macaroni-and-cheese/
Let us know how you get on!