Sodium Citrate

Anyone know where sodium citrate can be acquired locally? No dice from the search function or a google search.

I'd settle for Citric Acid, as I couldn't find that at Fresh Farms this afternoon. (Google/Reddit suggests that it may be available at Whole Foods)

TIA

ziggy wrote:I'd settle for Citric Acid, as I couldn't find that at Fresh Farms this afternoon.

I've bought Citric Acid in the Middle Eastern section of Fresh Farms Niles. I've also bought it at the spice house, though their search function no longer list Citric Acid.

I've bought citric acid at Pita Inn Market in the past, buy it's been a while. Sodium citrate is something I've only bought online.

G Wiv wrote:

ziggy wrote:I'd settle for Citric Acid, as I couldn't find that at Fresh Farms this afternoon.

I've bought Citric Acid in the Middle Eastern section of Fresh Farms Niles. I've also bought it at the spice house, though their search function no longer list Citric Acid.

Yeah, citric acid in my neighborhood you can find at Pete's Fresh Market and Shop and Save. Depending on the neighborhood, they will often have a Middle Eastern section with Ziyad products, and citric acid is one of the usual ones I find.

Which I've always wondered about -- what about those cuisines uses citric acid commonly enough that it's in the Middle Eastern spice section?

Also check Walmart. According to the website, I see a couple of Walmarts by where I live stock it (in Bedford Park and Forest Park.) Both have citric acid in stock under the name Ball Bulk Citric Acid, so I assume found in the canning section. Picking a more northerly ZIP code, I see the Walmart in Niles and the one near Cicero and Diversey also have it in stock. Check their website.

Which reminds me, maybe Target might also have it, since they carry canning stuff -- yup, the one by my house has it, so check their website, as well.

Binko wrote:Which I've always wondered about -- what about those cuisines uses citric acid commonly enough that it's in the Middle Eastern spice section?

I've seen references to sour salt (citric acid) in kosher cooking, but no details or recipes. I've also seen bottles of "rock salt" style sour salt, which seems like it would be very difficult to use in cooking.

Citric acid can be used to make quick mozzarella. Perhaps there are similar non-cultured soft cheeses in Middle Eastern cuisines?

If I had to, I'd probably guess pickling/canning/preserving is a bit more popular within those groups than in general, so it's a more standard grocery store item, but that's just a guess. Just like you see "cal" in Mexican spice sections (calcium hydroxide), which is used to nixtamalize corn for pozole/masa.

Thanks all. Found Ball branded citric acid at my local Target in the canning/kitchen supplies area.

Used this video/method/recipe to create sodium citrate that helped hold together a delicious cheese sauce for some gluttonous pork belly mac n cheese yesterday.

Oh, that's cool. I had no idea it can be made that simply (just water, baking soda, and citric acid, and a bit of time on the stove.) So it worked out well, I take it?

Brew & Grow carries citric acid and I also believe they have sodium citrate.

Binko wrote:Oh, that's cool. I had no idea it can be made that simply (just water, baking soda, and citric acid, and a bit of time on the stove.) So it worked out well, I take it?

Yeah, was a bit laborious to completely dry out but that could have been my temp control. It yielded about 110 grams of sodium citrate.

One note: there is a comment on the video that mentions letting the baking soda and citric acid react over a bit of heat (smallest burner on low for me) reduces the time of the reaction. I found this to be very helpful and reduced the reaction time from the hour+ mentioned in the video to maybe 15 min or so for me. I made sure to pretty continuously stir the mixture so none of it got heated more than the rest.

Is there a need to dehydrate the sodium citrate? At the end of the video, he describes adding it + water to cheese. Why not just leave it in the water?

tjr wrote:Is there a need to dehydrate the sodium citrate? At the end of the video, he describes adding it + water to cheese. Why not just leave it in the water?

I suppose just for storage? The recipe or method I was following used dry (as have a couple other recipes I'm interested in), so it worked out for me. Then I was able to use whole milk as the only liquid in my cheese sauce.

I did see other methods that did leave it as a liquid so that is certainly an option.

Too late for the original query, but for anyone (else) interested, we found a container of "sour salt" in the Israeli/kosher section of our local Jewel when we needed some last year for sour cabbage soup. Exactly what we needed.