On Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 1:02:18 PM UTC-10, Doris Night wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Oct 2016 11:33:59 -0700 (PDT), dsi1 <dsi1yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 12:58:37 AM UTC-10, Alan Holbrook wrote:
> >> Every once in a while, when I get the feeling that my arteries are still
> >> too flexible and my heart isn't working hard enough pumping blood, I'll
> >> make a large skillet of sawmill gravy and pour it over biscuits for
> >> breakfast. The recipe I follow says, as do all the other recipes I've seen
> >> that involve making a white sauce, that once you have the roux the color
> >> you want, you should take the pan off the heat to add the milk. I've often
> >> wondered why that is and what would happen if you added the milk directly
> >> to the pan containing the roux while it's still on the burner. Rather than
> >> risk seven years' bad luck or something similar trying it, I thought I'd
> >> ask. Can any of the RFC intelligentsia enlighten me?
> >
> >I'm not going to tell you how to make white sauce - that's a personal choice. OTOH, being able to make a white sauce should be a requirement for graduation from high school.
>
> For your entertainment, I will now tell you how my sister-in-law makes
> cheese sauce.
>
> For best results, get half wasted before beginning.
>
> Get the smallest saucepan you own - I think the one she uses is two
> cups - and fill it up with cold milk. Add a couple spoons of
> cornstarch and stir. This is the "bechamel" part. The only time she
> makes this is when she needs cheese sauce for broccoli. So she grates
> some cheap mild cheddar and adds this to the pot of cold milk. There
> is no salt in this, because salt is Bad For You. Then she turns the
> stove on low and waits for it to get hot, stirring a few times while
> it's warming up. When the whole thing boils over and gets all over the
> stove, it's done.
>
> Doris

It's the world's most casual cheese sauce. My daughter made some macaroni and cheese. It was pretty good. It was not made with a white sauce base. Beats me how she did it. It's a mystery.