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Cheese fondue seems to be so simple to prepare: mix wine, cheese, starch powder and spices, heat it, mix and eat. But science is actually much more complex.
The dish is really a complex multi-phase system, brought about by the rheology of cheese, wine and starches, that can make all the difference between a creamy meal and a mess of separate ingredients. At the base, a cheese fondue is water with a dispersed mixture of fat droplets, caseins and starch granules, the concentration and quality of which is of particular importance.
Scientists from the Zurich Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health have studied the possibility of making a perfect fondue with texture, flavor, mouthfeel, viscosity and rigidity appropriate bread.
The perfect fondue must be able to coat bread, defy gravity, give a pleasant sensation in the mouth and release its taste without being too thick or too watery. In addition, the ingredients must be integrated with each other so that the fondue does not quail or separate.
The cheese that goes into the fondue is essentially a protein gel that wraps fat globules. As the cheese melts, the gel network shrinks and collapses, releasing the fat. Add 30% to 40% of the weight of the wine, especially if it is dry and at low pH, introduces both water and ethanol into the cheese, dispersing the proteins and by emulsifying the fat globules. By adding a potato starch, corn or carrageenan accounting for 3% of the total weight prevents proteins, water and fats from separating. By gelatinizing, the starch also increases the viscosity.
The difficulty is to have the fondue settle around the freezing point. That is, the point where the viscosity is set to make a sudden change from liquid to solid. By balancing the different electrostatic forces of the ingredients, it is possible to reach the right level of viscosity.
This boils down to the fondue pot, that is, by carefully balancing the ingredients, especially the wine, and using the most effective starch, such as carrageenan, it is possible to make a fondue cheese with the just melting, and even to make it more digestible. .
Ah, finally an excuse to use this fondue service that has been dragging on for decades.
The search was published in ACS Omega.
