Day 4: Mac and Cheese

Today we made 5 different kinds of mac and cheese. I’m not a big mac and cheese person, but that’s because the only mac and cheese I’ve ever really had is Easy Mac at 1 am. While incredibly satisfying in the moment (though most things are delicious after midnight), it’s not exactly fine dining.

I’m now officially a mac and cheese believer. The thing that set this dish apart was that it started out with a roux (instead of you know, fake cheese sauce that you cook in a microwave).

A roux is simply cooking butter with flour so that the flour loses its starchy, raw taste. The butter coats the flour so that it can distribute evenly and not clump. You want equal parts flour and butter - in this case it was 2 ounces each. There are 4 stages of a roux (and for each, you want to be stirring constantly):

• White roux: Starches have broken down, but the roux has no color. This is a what you would use for a béchamel
• Blonde roux: just barely toasted, and doesn’t take too much time to get here from a white roux. If you add white stock to this you would get a veloute (velvety french soup)

• Brown roux: ends up looking almost like peanut butter! Combine with brown stock to get a brown sauce.
• Dark roux: Cooked down much farther than even a brown roux, and used as a base for cajun cooking (e.g. gumbo)

The more a roux cooks down, the more flavor it has, but the less thickening power it has.

We also made clarified butter. Butter is only about 80-85% butter fat, and the rest of it is comprised of water, milk proteins, and sugar.  Clarified butter has just cooked down so that the fat separates from everything else. This fat has a much higher smoke point than the butter you started with. With butter, the stuff that burns is the sugars and proteins - by removing that, you can now cook with it at much higher temperatures. Think the stage right before brown butter. Make sure to strain to remove any of the bits! 

We made 5 different versions of the mac and cheese:

• Roasted pepper and smoked cheddar
• Gruyere and leek
• Swiss and mushrooms
• Provolone and broccoli
• Plain cheddar

Mushroom on the left, jalapeño on the right

The gruyere and leek was the best, so here’s the recipe for that. But you could sub out the gruyere for any other kind of cheese you like, and add in any extra ingredients at the end right before baking (same time that we add the leeks). If you’re gluten free, just sub in gluten free noodles, rice flour for the roux, and GF bread crumbs.

Mac and Cheese Recipe

Topping Ingredients:

• ⅛ cup clarified butter
• ½ cup panko
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• ¼ tsp kosher salt

Mac and Cheese ingredients:

• ½ lb dried elbow macaroni
• ¼ cup unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 cups whole milk
• ⅜ cup heavy cream
• 3 leeks
• 8 oz coarsely grated gruyere (or sub for another kind of cheese)
• 1 ounce grated parmesan
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• 1 tbsp mustard powder

Recipe:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cook pasta until al dente (make sure to salt your water!)
3. Make your topping and pasta: heat clarified butter in a saute pan. Add panko and garlic, and cook (stirring) until crumbs are golden brown. Transfer to a medium bowl, and stir in parmesan and salt.
4. Chop your leek, and saute in a saucepan until softened.
5. Make your roux: In a saucepan, melt butter and whisk in flour. Stir constantly until flour and butter start bubbling and then come together - do not let it brown.
6. Add milk and cream and whisk until sauce boils. Bring down to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened and will coat your spoon.
7. Add spices, and then your cheese in batches so that it is able to melt down without clumping.
8. Remove from heat, add sautéed leeks, then your macaroni and stir well to combine.
9. Transfer to a buttered baking dish, and place on a cookie sheet (to catch any of the deliciousness that might bubble over in the oven). Sprinkle topping and bake until golden and bubbling, about 20 minutes.