"Sheldon" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> elaine wrote:
> > Last night for supper I made a cheese sauce that called for smoked
> gouda -
> > the sauce was good, but the cheese didn't really melt the way other
> cheeses,
> > do plus it looked curdled. Is this normal for gouda? Fortunately I
> wasn't
> > entertaining a whole group of people!
> >
> > Elaine
>
> Many cheeses simply don't incorporate well into sauces. Generally
> smoked cheeses are much harder/drier (low water content) than their
> unsmoked counterparts, those are more difficult to combine and often
> need to be finely grated and added to sauces a little at a time.
> Dry/hard cheeses are more adept at incorporating with more fluid/long
> cooking dishes like soups rather than sauces... I wouldn't attempt
> preparing cheese sauce with any of the grating cheeses. And as to
> processed cheeses, those more easily incorporated and are less
> expensive, try one of those smoked cheeses... I think it would be a
> shame to waste a fine imported smoked gouda by using it for sauce... a
> major component of a fine cheese is it's texture... I'd not turn any
> fine cheese into sauce.
>
> Sheldon

Ok - thanks for an explanation that I actually understand.

>