Eating In: Cheese in Cracker — Dipping A Toe Into The Alinea Mosaic

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Oct 6, 2008 5:46PM

In a little over a week a year of anticipation will give way to impatient waiting by the mailbox as the Alinea cookbook arrives for those who pre-ordered it this time last year (including your humble food and drink editor). Some bookstores may already be selling the five-plus-pound omnibus — Anthony said he spent a half hour at Book Cellar over the weekend just thumbing through it — but the preorders come with signatures from Grant Achatz and the Alinea team.

Another perk of the pre-order is access to the Alinea Mosaic, granting visitors who bought advance copies of the book access to recipes, cooking demos, photography and techniques not found in the book. So our weekend was spent trying out recipes from the Alinea Mosaic to varying degrees of success. The recipe that worked out best was "cheese in cracker." This whimsical recipe gives eaters an intense burst of cheddar cheese, injected into the middle of the cracker with a syringe. They turned out surprisingly well, so well that we've been popping these babies into hot bowls of chili. Full recipe follows.

Cheese in Cracker

Cracker Dough

215 g (7.6 oz) water
13 g (.5 oz) fresh yeast
4 g (.1 oz) sugar
470 g (1 lb .6 oz) all-purpose flour
4 g (.1 oz) kosher salt
55 g (1.9 oz) melted butter
kosher salt

In bowl of stand mixer, stir together water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand for 5 minutes to proof yeast. Add flour, 4 g (.1 oz) salt, and butter. Attach bowl to mixer, fit mixer with dough hook, and beat on low speed for about 6 minutes, or until dough comes together and forms firm ball. Remove bowl from mixer, cover, and let dough rise in warm place for 25 minutes. Then refrigerate bowl overnight.

The following day, transfer dough to warm place. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Line sheet tray with parchment. Preheat oven to 450°F (230°C). Using rolling pin or pasta machine, roll out 1 piece of dough about 1 / 16 inch (2 mm) thick. Reserve remaining dough for another use. Cut dough sheet into eight 1-inch (2.5-cm) squares. Transfer squares to prepared sheet tray. Season squares liberally with salt. Bake for 6 minutes. Each cracker will puff in center and turn golden brown. Let cool on wire rack to room temperature. Using needle of syringe, punch 1 small hole in each cracker. Reserve in airtight container.

Cheddar Cheese Sauce

150 g (5.3 oz) aged Wisconsin Cheddar cheese
150 g (5.3 oz) whole milk
6 g (.2 oz) kosher salt
4 g (.1 oz) sugar

Grate cheese on large holes of box grater. Transfer cheese to blender. In small saucepan, bring milk to a simmer. Remove from heat and pour into blender. Add salt and sugar and blend on high speed until cheese has melted and liquid is very smooth. Pass through chinois (Ed. Note: A small mesh colander can also work) into small container. Cover and reserve in warm place until ready to fill crackers.

To assemble and serve

Fill syringe with 30 cc of cheese sauce. Using hole made with syringe needle, inject sauce into cracker. Do not overfill or cracker will burst. (Ed. Note: We found out that it's pretty easy to get your hands on a needle and syringe. However, it's gonna take a bigger gauge needle to inject the cheese sauce into the cracker.A standard insulin needle will not work. We found that the needle and syringe from a ink jet printer cartridge refilling kit was just the right size, leaving a minimal hole in the cracker.)