[Sca-cooks] Question on Cheese Goo

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach DragonTamer:
>From the Florilegium:
>
>[redaction by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook]
>1/2 lb butter
>1/2 lb cream cheese
>1/8 lb Brie or other strongly flavored cheese
>1/4 t white pepper
>
>Melt the butter. Cut up the cheese and stir it into the butter over low
>heat. You will probably want to use a whisk to blend the two together and
>keep the sauce from separating (which it is very much inclined to do). When
>you have a uniform, creamy sauce you are done. You may serve it over
>asparagus
>or other vegetables, or over toast; if you want to brown the top, put it
>under
>the broiling unit in your stove for a minute or so. Experiment with some of
>the
>variations suggested in the original.
>
>
>My question: if you substitute margarine for the real butter is it a REALLY
>bad thing?

It might not work very well. First of all, the emulsified state of
margarine is much less stable than that of butter (which isn't very
stable anyway); the finished dish would probably be _very_ greasy,
unless your cream cheese is so full of xanthan gum or other
emulsifiers that it is doable. It also burns at a lower temperature
than butter does, so you'd have to be really careful with the
browning part, if you decide to do that.

Overall, I would advise against it. Any health or cost considerations
are probably offset by the difficulties added to the process and a
diminution of quality. Basically, no matter what you do, this isn't
going to be a really heart-healthy dish, so it might as well be
_good_ as well as bad for you.

Adamantius