Mac n Cheese - Just the Beginning

Recently I threw together a spicy, bacony (yes, that’s a word!) macaroni and cheese and I have to say, it was pretty yummy. Mark thought I should share the recipe, but really, it’s not a recipe, it’s a method, or a process I just follow and change up depending on what ingredients I have available. So here’s my idea, I will give you a basic process for a fairly straight forward macaroni and cheese process and then give you some ideas how you could step it up a bit.

First lets talk cheese sauce. This isn’t a scary process at all. It’s actually pretty simple to make and very versatile. It starts with a white sauce, called Bechamel. Bechamel, in French culinary tradition, is one of the five mother sauces. It’s given this honor because from the basic white sauce, you can create A LOT of ‘small’ sauces, meaning by adding different ingredients to the finished Bechamel, you can create other yummy sauces. For now, we are going to use our Bechamel to make cheese sauce.

Cook off a ½ pound of dried pasta of your choosing, elbow, shells, whatever. I also sneak in whole grain pasta, it totally works in this dish. I just run cold water over it to stop the cooking and put a bit of olive oil on it to keep it from sticking together while it waits for the cheesy goodness.

Start with a high sided sauce pan. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add a dash of olive oil. Pour in 2 tablespoons of flour and with a whisk, mix the butter/flour mixture, called a roux, letting it cook for about 60 seconds. This is what will thicken your white sauce. The more you cook it, the less thickening power it has, but if you don’t cook it a bit the starch in the flour will make your sauce taste like kindergarten paste….so let it cook. Add 3 cups of milk, lowfat is fine. The milk needs to be cold, pour a bit and whisk, pour, whisk etc. This will prevent lumps. The rule is always hot roux, use cold liquid, cold roux, use hot liquid. If you added warm milk to the hot roux, you will end up with lumps. Once its whisked in, just let it come to a simmer and let it simmer (not boil) for a couple minutes. Again, you are trying to ensure you let the starchy taste cook out. It will come to its full thickening power when it simmers. Except for the seasoning, which we will do after we add cheese, you have just made one of the five mother sauces!!

(NOTE: because the sauce will thicken with the addition of cheese, I use 1 tablespoon less of flour than I would if I was not adding cheese. Keep this in mind if you decide to use the white sauce for some other type of application, you can add another tablespoon of flour if you want it to be thicker)

Turn the heat down to low and add 4 ounces of cream cheese and 8-12 ounces, 1 to ½ cups of shredded cheddar cheese. Let it melt, stirring occasionally. Do not boil it after you add the cheese or the cheese will break and you will have a clumpy oily mess. Just let it slowly melt on a warm heat. Taste it and season it with salt and pepper to taste. You now have cheese sauce, or Sauce Fromage!

Mix the cheese sauce with the cooked pasta. You could eat it now….and I definitely would atleast grab a few spoonfuls…why wait. Or, you could pour it in a casserole dish and bake it just long enough to give it a nice crust on the outside. You should help the crust along by covering the top with shredded cheese or my personal favorite, crushed up buttery crackers mixed with grated parmesan, fresh ground black pepper and olive oil. I just spread it over the top and it makes a crunchy yummy topping. Sprinkle the top with crispy bacon and you have made it even a bit more special.

Now you have made homemade mac-n-cheese. How about we take it for a new spin.

Here is what I did the other day. I slowly rendered pancetta with onions, letting the onions caramelize and the pancetta get crispy. I added 2 tablespoons of butter, the 2 tablespoons of flour, whisked it all, added my 3 cups of milk and let it simmer. I added the 4 ounces of cream cheese and used a ½ cups of pepper jack cheese and a ½ cup of a dry white cheddar cheese we had lying around. I mixed the whole grain pasta with the sauce, toped it with the crushed cracker mixture as above and baked it for about 15 minutes, just until the top was golden.

You could easily do something similar using combinations including ham, bacon, prosciutto, smoked chicken or turkey, even left over steak could be mixed in. The addition of the meat makes it feel like a hearty meal.

I hope you give it a try and find you can get creative with an old family favorite. Also, once you feel confident with the Bechamel, you could use that for many other things….add mushrooms and asiago cheese to make lovely baked pasta or pour it over chicken or pork chops and bake it. The sauce itself is very versatile. Chipped beef on toast could be elevated to a whole new level….I’m just not ready to go there.

Give it a try and have fun.

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Mac n Cheese - Just the Beginning
Friday, 04 September 2009

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Mac n Cheese - Just the Beginning

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