Cooking For Engineers

[Cooking For Engineers]

I love a good Macaroni and Cheese. The problem is, like potato salad, I am very particular about my Mac & Cheese. I like it creamy, but not soupy or goopy. It should be thick enough to stand up a fork in it, but not gritty or grainy. It's not easy to find a recipe that lives up to my expectations, but here's one that I finally found that is just amazing.

The best recipe for Macaroni and Cheese that I've made so far is the one recently published in Cook's Country Magazine (in the April/May 2007 issue). The texture is simply amazing - smooth but not runny, cheesy but without clumping or separating.

The recipe is more complicated than most, but in order to achieve the ultimate mac & cheese, that's what it takes. The recipe utilizes three different cheeses: American cheese (for stability - American cheese has stabilizing ingredients), Monterey Jack cheese (for creaminess), and sharp cheddar (for flavor). (A fourth cheese is actually used - Parmesan - to flavor the bread crumb topping!) To keep the cheeses from breaking, evaporated milk (which contains carrageen or other stabilizing ingredients) is used instead of milk or cream.

For the bread crumb topping, use 4 slices of white sandwich bread, 4 tablespoons (55 g) melted butter, 1/4 cup (35 g) grated Parmesan cheese.


The rest of the ingredients needed are 5 Tbs. (45 g) all-purpose flour, 1 lb. (450 g) elbow macaroni, 3 12-oz. cans (1 L) evaporated milk, 5 oz. (140 g) American cheese, 8 oz. (225 g) extra sharp cheddar cheese, 3 oz. (85 g) Monterey Jack cheese, 1/8 tsp. (0.3 g) ground nutmeg, 1 tsp. (3.3 g) ground mustard seed, 2 tsp. (12 g) table salt, 4 Tbs. (55 g) melted butter, and 1 teaspoon (5 mL) of hot sauce.


Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Bring four quarts of water to a hard boil. Dissolve at least 1 Tbs. (18 g) table salt into the water and add the macaroni. Cook until al dente (when the macaroni no longer shows white in center of the pasta when you bite into it but still has chew). Check the instructions on the package of your macaroni product and use the time listed as a guide. I generally start checking the macaroni a minute or two early to make sure I don't over cook it.


Once it's ready, ladle out 1/2 cup water to be reserved for the cheese sauce later. Immediately drain the macaroni and rinse it thoroughly in cold water to stop the cooking. This is one of the few times I advocate using a colander and rinsing pasta with cold water (in most cases, pasta used in casseroles benefits from this procedure).


Break the sandwich bread into chunks and pulse in a food processor with 4 Tbs. of melted butter and the Parmesan cheese until bread crumbs are formed. Set aside in a bowl for topping the casserole later.


Shred the American, Monterey Jack, and cheddar cheeses. I found this was done fastest by using the grating disc on my food processor.


Prepare a roux by heating (over medium heat) 4 Tbs. butter until it foams. Then stir in the flour and cook while stirring until light brown (about 1 minute).


Slowly add evaporated milk while stirring until all the evaporated milk has been added to the pot and no clumps of roux remain. Stir in the hot sauce, nutmeg, mustard, and salt.


Cook the mixture for about 4 more minutes on medium heat. The mixture (a béchamel sauce) should have thickened up.


Move the pot off the heat source and stir in the grated cheeses and 1/2 cup reserve water. Keep stirring until the cheese completely melts into the bechamel.


Stir in the cooked macaroni so that the sauce completely coats all the pasta.


Pour the macaroni and cheese into a 9x13-in. baking pan.


Cover the top of the macaroni and cheese with the bread crumb mixture.


Bake for 25 minutes (when the edges begin to bubble). Remove from the oven and let the casserole sit for 5 to 10 minutes before cutting into it to serve.





Macaroni and Cheese Bake (serves 12)
Boiled Macaroni

4 qt. (4 L) water	boil	dissolve	boil until al dente	reserve 1/2 cup water and drain & rinse macaroni
1 Tbs. (18 g) table salt
1 lb. (450 g) elbow macaroni

Macaroni and Cheese Bake

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
4 Tbs. (55 g) melted butter	cook while stirring until light brown (1 min.)	stir in slowly	stir in	remove from heat when thickened (4 min.)	stir in until melted	stir in until coated	pour into 9x13-in. pan	top	bake 25 min. 350°F (175°C)	let rest 10 min.
5 Tbs. (45 g) all-purpose flour
3 12-oz. cans (1 L) evaporated milk
1/8 tsp. (0.3 g) ground nutmeg
1 tsp. (3.3 g) ground mustard seed
2 tsp. (12 g) table salt
1 teaspoon (5 mL) of hot sauce
5 oz. (140 g) American cheese	grate
8 oz. (225 g) extra sharp cheddar cheese
3 oz. (85 g) Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup reserve pasta water
cooked macaroni
4 slices of white sandwich bread	pulse into breadcrumbs
4 Tbs.(55 g) melted butter
1/4 cup (35 g) grated Parmesan cheese

[Fergus]

350F is 180C http://tinyurl.com/3bh4yz

[Coffeea & Vanilla]

Great recipe.
My step son loves mac & cheese... I will make it for him when he comes back from holidays...
Thank you for sharing,
Margot
www.coffeeandvanilla.com

[andersonimes]

Have you tried Alton Brown's recipe for mac and cheese "toast" with this recipe?
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_18431,00.html?rsrc=search

I think it actually might be immoral to produce these. I've never done it myself, but I'd sure like to know if you've tried it and if it was good. I think it would take a very well-done mac and cheese to stand up to being fried into wedges.

[Michael Chu]

[david]

For us Europeans, what is American Cheese with all its stabilizing ingredients?

[Guest]

The Cheesecake Factory has fried macaroni and cheese as an appetizer...it's not all that great.

For those of you interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cheese

I like using saltine crackers as the topping, and instead of hotsauce, cayenne pepepr. Also, I love a mac-n'-cheese with lots of cracked black pepper. Mmmm......

[Kstar]

I love my mothers mac n cheese, a simpler version of this reciepe:

1 egg
1 tbsp prepared mustard
pepper
salt
1 pint heavy cream

wisk together and pour between several layers of macaroni and slices of 1 lb ea. pepper jack and sharp chedder. Bake at 350 for 30 min or until it starts to bubble. Warm gooey and o so satifsying! I like it best with ketchup!

[steph]

American cheese is this coagulated milk based stuff. Here's an example: http://tinyurl.com/23y6wa You might try looking at some sliced cheese at an Aldi-like supermarket. In my experience, if it's real cheese, it doesn't have a list of ingredients.

I think the consistency of the finished product is dependant on so many things: the flour, the water content of the milk, the water content of the cheese, the time in the oven, etc., so it would surprise me if the chemically goodness of the American cheese really is what gave the right consistency.

[julie]

Have you had the opportunity to quantitate the nutritional content per serving of your most fabulous sounding dish? I'm interested in the caloric/protein/carb/fat content. My guess is, it more than likely puts it way off the list of possibilities. Oh to dream...

[MG]

Ever tried the mac and cheese at The Cheesecake Factory? It is about the BEST stuff I have ever had. I know they use parmesan in it as I can taste it. I am with you for consistency, though. I like it smooth but not runny nor grainy. Flavor is also important. Anyway, I was wondering if you tried the stuff at The Cheesecake Factory and how it compared?

Regarding fried mac and cheese, yeah, I think that is a sin. Hahaha, I don't want to imagine what result that has on the bad cholesteral meter. Thinking about it makes my heart start constricting at the moment! OUCH!

I think TGIFriday's sells the fried stuff, too!

[Guest]

If you like a little extra flavor with your mac, try crushing cheez-it crackers for the top crust rather than bread.

[Monica]

I've had fried mac and chz, and its definitely something to experience at least once. I'm not saying its the healthiest, but come on...read the name again...did you think it would be? I've also had Mac and Chz pizza. That was sinful. I heard that CiCi's had some, but there are no locations here, so I asked some questions about it, and built my own with homemade mac n chz. So good.

I will add that my mother made everything from scratch. My husband had never had homemade mac and chz before me. What?! He's a convert. Though he still likes his Kraft.

[Jessica]

Someone asked about the caloric content of the mac and cheese. I was curious too and calculated it to be about 460-475 calories per serving (whick looks to be about half a cup).

Definitely not for an everyday meal, but might be do-able for a holiday meal.

- Jess

[Guest]

Regarding what on earth he is calling American cheese is...

it is usually called "Processed cheese" "Processed cheese slices" or just "cheese slices", or kind of like we refer to tissues as "Kleenex", we also refer to it as "Kraft slices" occasionally. Sometimes the slices are labelled "Cheese Product" too, because it is not really REAL cheese.

I am in Canada and no one has ever referred to it as American because that word is not on any of the packages, although they are identical otherwise. Strange that the word is added to the packages sold in the United States. I believe that American refers to the STYLE of the cheese - processing it into one-at-a-time slices. I think it was their idea to do this. (Of course, there is no such actual cheese as "American", like Gouda, Cheddar, etc.)