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In the last elimination challenge before the finals in the first season of Top Chef, a panel of judges including some of the most accomplished and discerning chefs in the country chose Dave’s truffle & cognac cream macaroni & cheese, filet of beef, and collard greens & radicchio as the winning dish. The filet and greens were criticized for being “afterthoughts” to the macaroni & cheese, which itself was the favorite dish of all the judges.
Let’s look at a common recipe for macaroni & cheese. If you look at steps 1-4, you will see that we are making a béchamel. This is one of the five mother sauces of French cuisine. It is basically a roux (equal parts butter and flour) and milk. It is the base for dozens of different sauces.
Next, we add cheese. The cheese melts into the sauce and is kept from coagulating by the starch granules that have swelled throughout the béchamel.
The sauce is combined with pasta in a casserole, topped with cheese, and baked.
This recipe calls for mustard powder and pepper. In my basic recipe, I also add Worcestershire sauce. I top it with buttered bread crumbs mixed with parmesan cheese toward the end of baking to get some browning and crunchiness. This makes a familiar dish with interesting flavors. It’s comfort food at this point, especially for a Catholic boy on Friday during Lent.
The whole process allows for variations throughout that can create anything from bold, simple flavors to an elegant subtle layering of flavors. When making the béchamel, one can sauté or sweat aromatics (shallots, garlic, onions, carrots, or leeks) in the butter before adding the flour for the roux. They can be left in for texture or strained out before adding the cheese. One can deglaze with white wine and reduce the liquid out before adding the milk. Herbs (or truffles) can be steeped in the sauce and removed or chopped and added just before the end. Wine (or cognac) can be added to the milk. Some people have successfully added citrus or vinegar for a delicious bite, but I haven’t done that successfully yet (it curdles on me). Pureed vegetables can be added. And, of course, bacon, prosciutto, or other seasoning meats can work well. All told, anything that can be done to vary a sauce can be done here as well. All of the talents of a skilled sauce maker can be brought to bear here.
Next we have the cheeses. Any good melting cheese will work here, and some semi-melting cheese can be added in small amounts. The flavors added to the sauce will highlight different aspects of the cheese, and vice-versa. The cheese will determine much of the richness and mouth feel of the final dish.
Macaroni & cheese works great with a sauce, but it can also be made with a custard. A custard can be thought of as a sauce thickened with eggs. So all the sauce variations described above can be applied to custards, although this will be more challenging to some cooks. Custards will have a creamier mouth feel, an excellent counterpoint to al dente pasta.
Next, the pasta. Shape – macaroni, twists, rigatoni – and content – semolina, whole wheat, or more exotic grains like quinoa, with or without spinach, peppers, tomatoes or other additions – will determine much of the texture of the overall dish. Vegetables – mushrooms, onions, eggplant, zucchini – and meat – sausage, ham, lobster, crab – can add flavor and texture.
Finally, the topping adds some crunch. Bread crumbs are the obvious choice, but broiled cheese, or crushed nuts all work. When done correctly, macaroni & cheese combines a creamy sauce or custard with chewy pasta and bit of nice crunch.
In short, macaroni & cheese can be a comfort food or a platform for highlighting dozens of savory ingredients. Although basic recipes are within the reach of any cook, advanced cooks can use it as a worthy showcase of their talents.
It is truly a wonderful dish, well-deserving of respect.
posted
*(&%^$ you. Making me crave things like this is evil. Neither my waistline nor my wallet can afford me making this tomorrow.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
There was a wonderful cookbook out about a decade ago ("Loony Spoons"? Something like that) which included a couple of low-fat (but not low taste and non-creamy) macaroni and cheese.
And even a hint at how to make the Kraft stuff better.
Such recipes were a great help to me on my mission.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I like to use canned chicken with my mac and cheese too. Turns a tasty snack into a tasty meal.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Thank you, Dag. You've done the almost impossible...made me hungry again almost immediately after I finished eating dinner.
Granted, dinner was sourdough toast and two tangelos, but I thought it was more than enough (since it was warm here today, and I don't eat much when it is warm) until I read your post.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Darn it, Dag, you made me hungry for homemade macaroni and cheese.
I like the idea of adding worcestershire, maybe I'll try it next time. I have been adding the mustard powder. I season the breadcrumb topping with dried oregano and basil, and I often use wheat germ.
Also, because I am a weird healthfood freak and I was always trying to get more protein into our mostly vegetarian diet, especially for the sake of my growing children, I have sometimes used some soy flour when making the bechamel. We don't really taste it much, but I suspect many people wouldn't like the taste, as it is somewhat different than using wheat flour.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote: Darn it, Dag, you made me hungry for homemade macaroni and cheese.
That is, of course, the point of the thread.
Does soy flour thicken as well as wheat flour? Thickening isn't nearly as crucial when you're adding cheese to it, but in a lot of other uses that will matter.
There are lots of pastas that can add more protein - including soy, quinoa, and whole wheat.
I've been meaning to play around with soy flour in my bread machine.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Ela: Darn it, Dag, you made me hungry for homemade macaroni and cheese.
I like the idea of adding worcestershire, maybe I'll try it next time. I have been adding the mustard powder. I season the breadcrumb topping with dried oregano and basil, and I often use wheat germ.
Also, because I am a weird healthfood freak and I was always trying to get more protein into our mostly vegetarian diet, especially for the sake of my growing children, I have sometimes used some soy flour when making the bechamel. We don't really taste it much, but I suspect many people wouldn't like the taste, as it is somewhat different than using wheat flour.
You could always give seitan a try and add that in instead of canned tuna or ham.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Does soy flour thicken as well as wheat flour? Thickening isn't nearly as crucial when you're adding cheese to it, but in a lot of other uses that will matter.
It thickens well enough for mac and cheese.
We tend to stick to normal durum wheat pasta, as the various other varieties start to get expensive.
quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: You could always give seitan a try and add that in instead of canned tuna or ham.
I dispise seitan.
I don't generally add tuna to my mac and cheese - I am a mac and cheese purist. I have other casserole recipes containing both pasta and cheese, but they are not "mac and cheese."
And I don't eat ham.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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I made some of the delicious concoction for dinner tonight. It was fantastic - I added chopped bacon and extra cheese to the top Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Macaroni and cheese is one of those foods that is so fundamental (in the sense that there's really not a lot of pizazz to it) that saying you hate it is really more like saying you hate cheese or pasta.
And yes, someone did ask. I'm just not sayin'.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Is blood sausage the same as blood pudding? Ugh.
As for mac and cheese, I love trying different variations. My favorite lately has been the recipe on the back of the Barilla pasta box, but they changed it! At forst, it had only half a box of macaroni, now it calls for a whole box. I liked the first version better, as it was more creamy and custard-like. Let's see, from memory it was:
1/4 cup butter 1/4 cup flour 1 t.mustard salt 5 cups milk 4 cups cheese 1/2 box macaroni, cooked
They had you leave about two cups of cheese fo the top, but I found it got too easily burned. My kids hate the crumbage, so this was a good one for them. It was close to a Howard Johnson's style mac and cheese, but had half its ancestry as a country style, which I grew up with, made with sharp local cheddar, breadcrumbs, and which had more of a sticky than a creamy consistency.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Yes, I might also try it with an even larger pasta, like ziti.
My son pours Frank's hot sauce on his mac and cheese. I like it that way also, but I tend to be a purest. Macaroni and cheese is all about salt and pepper.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Sharp cheddar and Wrocestershire sauce are a pair created in Heaven, for sure. I love to dip my grilled cheese sandwiches in it. It would make sense to put it in mac and cheese.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I am thinking of a soft melty goat cheese and wensleydale. I've had success with both in unusual ways before, so it's possible they would make a very creamy-tasting and mellow mac and cheese.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I have a niece that for the past 3 years has existed soley on Mac& Cheese. She refuses to eat anything else. Sadder still--it must be Kraft, and it must be cooked as she likes it. Alas, she lives to far away for me to try and cure her of this dangerous eating behavior.
My Aunt (other side of the family) had to babysit my son a couple of years ago. She went to extremes to cook him home made Mac & Cheese, since that is what he wanted.
When her 50 year old son came over and saw that, he whined "you never made homemade Mac & Cheese for me."
She replied, "Your not as cute."
Five year old Sasha confided to him later, "It really wasn't that good. I like it out of the box better."
When this got out my Aunt was devastated. We gave her a case of Kraft Mac & Cheese for Christmas that year.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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