Baked Macaroni & Cheese - post your secret family recipe

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

If you have one, that is. And none of the ingredients had better come from a bright yellow box.

I have a recipe that I’m proud of, which I have always served to rave reviews. But tomorrow I’m baking one for my coworkers & decided to stop in here to check for possible suggestions or modifications.

I start with a medium roux & add milk until I have about three cups in liquid volume. Add 1 tbsp of double strength mustard & enough ground pepper until the roux becomes heavily speckled (yes the final product will have a peppery hint). Once the roux is hot, I add various blends of grated cheese depending on what I happen to have lying around. I always use at least a half pound of extra sharp cheddar, and try to blend in an equal amount of gruyere or romano- something to give an otherwise bland dish a little “twang”.

The trick is to get the proportion of roux to cheese right, otherwise you’ll end up with a mass of elbow noodles all glued together by cheese. The final cheese/roux mixture should be about as thick as egg nog so that after baking, the M&C will be gooey, and you won’t need a knife to cut sections out of the baking dish, like brownies.

Boil noodles until until firm, them pour into a large baking dish (mine is pyrex 13×9×2 and one box of large elbow noodles fills it to the top). Then pour the roux/cheese mixture over & let it seep into the noodles. Then sprinkle a little cheddar over the top so that the noodles aren’t exposed to the oven elements (damn my stupid electric oven).

Chop up some parsley & sprinkle on top, sparingly. This is mainly for decoration; I can’t detect the flavor of the parsley after baking but the dish looks blah without it.

Bake at 450° for 20 minutes, then change oven setting to broiler and position the dish directly under the elements. Allow to brown to taste (I like mine crispy- almost burnt on top, but would never make it this way for company). This will take only a few minutes… watch it closely! Two minutes too long may make the whole dish inedibly burnt.

So… feel free to chime in with you hints & secret recipies.

(Yes, Zenster, I have posted my dish in The Ultimate Recipe Thread, but wanted to have the topic line show up for maximum response before tomorrow)

2

I like your recipe! For indeed, there must be strong cheese, and black pepper. Any of my additions are probably bad habits - like putting in (some, not many of ) mushrooms, or tomatoes, or courgettes (possible translation problem? = zucchini?), or anything like that, just to add a small bit of variety in taste, texture or appearance. But, as I say, I don’t think these are recipe suggestions, just my “throw anything in apart from the cat” version. Or how about some syboes/spring onions/scallions - they, like the parsley, add colour, and they could add another texture and taste without its being a strong taste.

Oh, I have just realised certain things about this thread:

  • it is about a recipe

  • I do not, therefore, belong in here.

  • your macaroni cheese is one carefully planned for your co-workers, so any of my “throw in as desired” additives are out of place, really. All the same, it could be fun to cause harmless confusion - throw in a few bits of truffles or something, or, (evil plan here) like the tradition of putting little coins (e.g. in U.K. sixpence pieces) into Xmas pudding, throw something surprising, although non-toxic into it. After all, the poor mad fools will not be expecting unusual stuff in their pasta cheese, will they?

  • I’m still not clear why one ought to say “hi” to Opalcat, delightful though she is.

  • And, anyway, with special reference to the point directly above, as I have failed to contribute sensibly to your recipe plan, I fear people will not require “hi” so much as “goodbye”

I’m sure it will be wonderful.
Celyn, who does not cook, but creeps off guiltily.

3

My only problem with the bechamel base for most baked mac & cheese dishes is that the cheese often becomes grainy, with the little pockets of yellow grease showing up in the dish. I use a base of evaporated milk, egg yolk, and a combination of american cheese and cheddar. The ratio for this is one can of evaporated milk, one egg yolk, 1/2 lb. american + 1/2 lb. cheddar, 1/2 lb. elbow macaroni. Heat the evaporated milk in a saucepan, gently whisk in egg yolk, when simmering, add the cheese, stirring until melted and smooth. Use cheese sauce as in other baked mac & cheese dishes.

I like to top mine with a layer of seasoned breadcrumbs–melt 2T. butter in a saute pan, add about 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 1 minced clove garlic, and 1T. chopped parsley, toss until butter is distributed evenly. I spread this on top of the mac & cheese during the last 10 minutes of baking.

4

Attrayant wrote:

Thank goodness that’s the only caveat. The boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese are blue. And Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is my favorite secret family macaroni and cheese recipe.

The secret is: add a touch more milk than the instructions call for, then when you’re done mixing in the butter and cheese powder, put it back on the stove 'til it’s bubbling. It’ll be a lot hotter when you serve it that way.

5

I love these recipies. I am a new housewife, and am a pretty good self-taught cook.

One question, though. I know what roux is, but how do you make it?

You all mention it in your responses…is it the "evaporated milk/egg yolk concoction one previous poster mentioned? HELP!!!

Sassy

6

wow, now I’m depressed. I just threw a Stouffers frozen Mac 'n Cheese dinner in the microwave. It’s going to pale in comparison to homemade. :frowning:

7

Roux is a magical combination of equal amounts of fat and flour. For mac & cheese, I’d suggest using butter–melt it first, then add your flour all at once. Stir in your flour well, and over medium heat, let it cook for about 2 minutes. This will remove any of the raw flour taste, and will bring the roux to a full thickening power. But, beware–do not let it cook longer, for the longer it cooks, the less thickening power it has.

1 oz. of roux will thicken 1 cup of liquid, so, use 1 T. butter + 1 T. flour to one cup of milk for the OP’s recipe.

8

I dropped by to say thank you for your post Attrayant. I just wanted to add how even what seems to be a simple dish can benefit immensely from working with real ingredients instead of prepackaged materials. Your recipe sounds excellent!

9

Great, now I feel like a complete macaroni and cheese yahoo. Here’s my recipe:

  1. Boil noodles.
  2. Mix in 1 cup sour cream and a lot of cheese.
  3. Bake for a long time.

Not fancy, but it works for me.

10

I like the kind that work! Why, then, are you fretful?

11

Celyn: Thanks for stopping by with your thoughtful comments; exactly how many consecutive hours have you been awake? :wink:

The scallions are a good idea. I also like the idea of adding a mystery ingredient. When I was younger, somebody made a lasagne that looked & tasted great but they dumped huge amounts of food coloring deep inside at random places. You’d be eating a tasty piece of lasagne, when all of a sudden there would be this bright blue or orange hunk of meat… disconcerting but still tasty.

Redhead: I realized my mistake leaving out details on the roux but I covered it when I cross posted this recipe in Zenster’s recipe thread, q.v. As JavaMaven pointed out, roux can be tricky to work with especially when trying to get the proportions right but when you’ve got it mastered it helps you out in many different recipies like soups & gravies. The only thing I have to add is once you have the flour/butter mixture going over medium/low heat, stir in milk slowly, adding more as the roux begins to thicken. Adding milk too fast may cause lumps- too slow and the roux will thicken into taffy.

Tracer: That is the box I was aiming for; I guess I thought it was bright yellow.

Fretful: Sour Cream? That sounds like it has real possibilities… not going to experiment on my coworkers but will surely have to try it on myself soon.

12

I love macaroni and cheese, but I don’t make it or eat it very often. My wife hates anything with fat in it; my daughter’s allergic to dairy, and my son…who’s five…prefers Annie’s Organic mix-in-a-box, the little bastard.

But when I DO make it, I follow that great Zen Master of the Kitchen, John Thorne.

In his first book, SIMPLE COOKING, Thorne writes “It’s a kind of familiar food that seems especially vulnerable to commercial corruption – like homemade marinara, vegetable soup, baked beans…dishes less out of style than no longer possessing any style at all. Simple foods made of simple, honest ingredients, they have been polished by the use of so many hands that their features have been rubbed entirely smooth…”

Recipe to follow. Have to break to read bedtime stories.

13

Like JavaMaven I too like to top my mac n cheese with seasoned breadcrumbs. I also add just a little shredded cheese on top of the crumbs and put it under the broiler till brown and bubbly. Watch it carefully, it burns quick.

My secret ingrediant for the sauce is dry mustard powder, about a teaspoon or so. I use white pepper cause I don’t like my sauce speckled.

The only thing powdered mac n cheese is good for is to take the cheese packet and sprinkle it on popcorn. Yum Yum.

14

We also add sauteed mushrooms and onions, and top the dish with sliced tomatoes before baking… nummy.

15

Celyn: “For indeed, there must be strong cheese, and black pepper.”

That sounds positively biblical! And for the food worshippers among us, it would be a great sig line.

May I?

16

All right. Thorne’s recipe was adapted from THE HOME COMFORT COOK BOOK, published in 1937 by the Wrought Iron Range Company, makers of the Home Comfort woodburning kitchen stove. Mine is adapted from his.

It isn’t a casserole. Thorne scorns mac & cheese casserole as “universally bland, dry, and rubbery,” plagued by a “vexatious infatuation with white sauce, a noxious paste of flour-thickened milk, flavored with a tiny grating of cheese.”

So the following is MACARONI AND CHEESE, not baked macaroni with cheese sauce.

1/2 pound elbow macaroni
4 tblsp butter, sliced thin
Dash Tabasco sauce
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 pound sharp Cheddar, grated
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp dry mustard dissolved in a little water
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350.
Boil the macaroni until just barely done in salted water. Drain and toss with the butter in a large, overproof mixing bowl. Mix the Tabasco into the milk. Reserving about 1/3 cup, stir the milk into the macaroni, then add three-quarters of the cheese, the eggs, and the mustard. When well combined, season to taste with salt and pepper, and set the bowl directly into the oven.
Every five minutes, remove it briefly to stir in some of the reserved cheese, adding more milk as necessary to keep the mixture moist and smooth.
When all the cheese has been incorporated and the mixture is nicely hot and creamy (about 20 minutes, all told), serve it at once, with a plate of toasted common crackers to crumble over.
Serves 4 to 6.

(Being a crass sensualist, I usually stir in [at the beginning] some onions and chopped ham, or onions and ground beef, that I’ve browned in a bit of the butter. And I doubt that I’ve ever used an entire POUND of cheese.)

17

**
**
No! That was the point, it was a lame joke - I really didn’t mean that you should put anything odd in your people’s dinner. It was a joke against my (lack of )culinary abilities more than anything else, especially my notion of throwing in mushroom, tomato, whatever, when it suited me rather than the recipe, (although, if you will fall for it, and put a Trident missile in your meal, don’t blame me.)

Anyway, I think you have good advice now, so have fun with it all.