Macaroni cheese
- Thread starter j.col
- Start date
Caporegime
- Joined
- 17 Oct 2006
- Posts
- 25,703
Searched yesterday and forgot to post a link.... ok with a name like this it can't be bad 
http://www.food.com/recipe/fannie-farmers-classic-baked-macaroni-and-cheese-135350
http://www.food.com/recipe/fannie-farmers-classic-baked-macaroni-and-cheese-135350
Soldato
- Joined
- 26 Dec 2003
- Posts
- 6,848
- Location
- Cambs UK
This is the one I use for plain mac + cheese
http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/taste-festivals/villandry-macaroni-cheese-recipe
http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/taste-festivals/villandry-macaroni-cheese-recipe
Macaroni cheese is so awesome. Hardest part for me is not getting lumps in the sauce mix when stirring the flour. I sometimes grill slices of bacon, dice them up and add them to the macaroni, and also sliced tomatoes, then bake.
Soldato
- Joined
- 15 Oct 2003
- Posts
- 15,641
- Location
- Chengdu
I always put way more cheese in my own than recipes state... Usually at least 150g for 3-4 people with another 50g over the top.
The more cheese, the better.
The more cheese, the better.
- Joined
- 27 Apr 2004
- Posts
- 107,330
- Location
- In bed with your sister
I don't think I've ever looked at a recipe for macaroni cheese. It's one of those classic dishes that my Mam showed me how to make at a young age and it tastes so much better than any other I've had, I feel no need to change it.
One thing that I add to the sauce (as does my Mam) that many don't seem to is English mustard. Seems to add a little extra kick to the sauce. The sauce is just your basic butter and flour roux, mustard, milk and cheese. The trick to avoid lumps is to add the milk a little at a time and stir vigorously. As soon as the sauce starts to get thick, add a little more milk and repeat until the sauce gets to the consistency you want it, then add the cheese. I don't weigh or measure anything - it's all done by eye - but then, I have been making it regularly for about 30 years.
If your sauce does get lumpy, give it a damn good thrashing with a balloon whisk, that will usually save it. Also, it helps if your milk is warm but it's not essential. I don't warm my milk but then, I'm the macaroni cheese king
If you're regularly getting lumpy sauce, try using warm milk (not boiling hot, just warm).
If I fancy tarting it up a bit, I add some fried onions, mushrooms and bacon (and, occasionally, some skinned tomatoes). I never bake mine - I find it dries it out and I don't like the texture. On the subject of texture, I prefer my macaroni on the soft side of al dente - not soft soft but a little softer than al dente.
My macaroni of choice is Marshall's which is made in Scotland and is easy to find back home in Shetland but almost impossible down here. Whenever I go home to visit, I bring about 5 kilos back down with me. If I run out, I get my Mam to send me some down. It's so much better than any other macaroni, I won't use anything else.
One thing that I add to the sauce (as does my Mam) that many don't seem to is English mustard. Seems to add a little extra kick to the sauce. The sauce is just your basic butter and flour roux, mustard, milk and cheese. The trick to avoid lumps is to add the milk a little at a time and stir vigorously. As soon as the sauce starts to get thick, add a little more milk and repeat until the sauce gets to the consistency you want it, then add the cheese. I don't weigh or measure anything - it's all done by eye - but then, I have been making it regularly for about 30 years.
If your sauce does get lumpy, give it a damn good thrashing with a balloon whisk, that will usually save it. Also, it helps if your milk is warm but it's not essential. I don't warm my milk but then, I'm the macaroni cheese king
If you're regularly getting lumpy sauce, try using warm milk (not boiling hot, just warm).If I fancy tarting it up a bit, I add some fried onions, mushrooms and bacon (and, occasionally, some skinned tomatoes). I never bake mine - I find it dries it out and I don't like the texture. On the subject of texture, I prefer my macaroni on the soft side of al dente - not soft soft but a little softer than al dente.
My macaroni of choice is Marshall's which is made in Scotland and is easy to find back home in Shetland but almost impossible down here. Whenever I go home to visit, I bring about 5 kilos back down with me. If I run out, I get my Mam to send me some down. It's so much better than any other macaroni, I won't use anything else.
Sometimes it goes griany/sandy texture. I never knew what this was, always assumed it was the flour.
This is why I love watching Heston, as he goes into the science it reveals SOS much about cooking.
It's caused by the cheese splitting. Make a basic white sauce, cook the flour out, then take off stove allow to cool slightly and then stir in the cheese. Heston in one of his recipes, grated the cheese then dusted in for flour, helps thicken the sauce but also helps prevent splitting.
This is why I love watching Heston, as he goes into the science it reveals SOS much about cooking.
It's caused by the cheese splitting. Make a basic white sauce, cook the flour out, then take off stove allow to cool slightly and then stir in the cheese. Heston in one of his recipes, grated the cheese then dusted in for flour, helps thicken the sauce but also helps prevent splitting.
The trick to avoid lumps is to add the milk a little at a time and stir vigorously.
If your sauce does get lumpy, give it a damn good thrashing with a balloon whisk, that will usually save it. Also, it helps if your milk is warm but it's not essential. I don't warm my milk but then, I'm the macaroni cheese king
Thanks for the tips, I think I'd better go buy a balloon whisk.
"give it a damn good thrashing" , that made me think of john cleese in fawlty towers hitting his car with the tree branch.
Here's my tried and tested version. Like the idea of using mustard in the sauce tho. Will try that out next time.
You'll need;
Some unsmoked Bacon Bits or Pancetta cubes
A clove of garlic
A handful of Chopped Chives
Some dried macaroni
Some spring onions
Equal weights of butter and flour and some milk (50grammes of butter and 50 grammes of flour per pint of milk or there abouts)
CHEEESE - Mature cheddar is good, try mixing red Leicester or Wensleydale etc, experiment!
Some vine Tomatoes
A shaving of nutmeg
Salt and Pepper.
First cook your macaroni in water with a little olive oil according to the packet instructions but minus 2 minutes cooking time. Drain.
Slice your spring onions. In a frying pan add a little oil and fry the pancetta/bacon until the fat is starting to render out. Turn down the heat add a knob of butter and throw in the sliced spring onions and diced garlic clove. Cook for about 4 minutes until the onions are starting to soften then drain the fat and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, put it on a low heat and throw in the butter. As soon as it has melted throw in the flour and whisk until smooth. Cook it very gently for about 3-4 minutes untill its starting to sizzle a little bit then throw in 2 ladels of milk and whisk. As it becomes thick continue to add the milk a ladel full at a time until you get consitency of double cream. as the milk warms the sauce will become thicker. Top tip; when you start getting bubbles coming through this is as thick as it will get when cooked. It should not be too thick, like say a pie filling because it will thicken more when you add the cheese.
When you are happy with the white sauce, have a good consistency and its slightly bubbling, grate your cheese (I use equal amounts of Red Leicester and mature cheddar) and throw it in bit by bit whisking until it has melted. Taste it for cheesyness as you go along, add more to taste.
Chop your chives and throw them in and stir. Add a small grating of nutmeg and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Lightly butter an oven proof dish and put your cooked macaroni in. Put the bacon and spring onions in and mix it up. Pour sauce over the top mix again and sprinkle with grated cheese (good to use parmesan here if you have it).
Finally top with a string of on the vine tomatoes (small ones) and bake in the oven until the tomatoes have roasted and the mac chee is bubbling.
Serve immediately, with garlic bread if you like.
You'll need;
Some unsmoked Bacon Bits or Pancetta cubes
A clove of garlic
A handful of Chopped Chives
Some dried macaroni
Some spring onions
Equal weights of butter and flour and some milk (50grammes of butter and 50 grammes of flour per pint of milk or there abouts)
CHEEESE - Mature cheddar is good, try mixing red Leicester or Wensleydale etc, experiment!
Some vine Tomatoes
A shaving of nutmeg
Salt and Pepper.
First cook your macaroni in water with a little olive oil according to the packet instructions but minus 2 minutes cooking time. Drain.
Slice your spring onions. In a frying pan add a little oil and fry the pancetta/bacon until the fat is starting to render out. Turn down the heat add a knob of butter and throw in the sliced spring onions and diced garlic clove. Cook for about 4 minutes until the onions are starting to soften then drain the fat and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, put it on a low heat and throw in the butter. As soon as it has melted throw in the flour and whisk until smooth. Cook it very gently for about 3-4 minutes untill its starting to sizzle a little bit then throw in 2 ladels of milk and whisk. As it becomes thick continue to add the milk a ladel full at a time until you get consitency of double cream. as the milk warms the sauce will become thicker. Top tip; when you start getting bubbles coming through this is as thick as it will get when cooked. It should not be too thick, like say a pie filling because it will thicken more when you add the cheese.
When you are happy with the white sauce, have a good consistency and its slightly bubbling, grate your cheese (I use equal amounts of Red Leicester and mature cheddar) and throw it in bit by bit whisking until it has melted. Taste it for cheesyness as you go along, add more to taste.
Chop your chives and throw them in and stir. Add a small grating of nutmeg and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Lightly butter an oven proof dish and put your cooked macaroni in. Put the bacon and spring onions in and mix it up. Pour sauce over the top mix again and sprinkle with grated cheese (good to use parmesan here if you have it).
Finally top with a string of on the vine tomatoes (small ones) and bake in the oven until the tomatoes have roasted and the mac chee is bubbling.
Serve immediately, with garlic bread if you like.
I'm very much a convert to the Modernist way of making this. The problem with the traditional method is the Bechamel based cheese sauce. The flour etc slightly dilutes the cheese flavour.
The Modernist version uses sour salt(or sodium citrate for technical types) as an emulsifier so the cheese doesn't separate when you heat it. That way, you don't need anything else like flour, you can just use cheese. So it tastes VERY cheesey, which is fantastic IMO.
Mature Cheddar & Aged Gouda
Water, Wheat Beer, Sodium Citrate(5% by weight of the cheese) - Simmer then add the cheese until it melts. Cool
Add the Macaroni and 3x the weight of cold water. Bring to the boil and leave until al dente(7 minutes). Most of the water has gone by now(absorbed and evaporation). DON'T DRAIN! you want to keep the starch that has leaked into the water.
Add 1.6 times weight of pasta of the cheese sauce from earlier. Stir until melted
it is fantastic. More cheesy than Steps at an ABBA convention.
If anybody is interested, I can look up the actual recipie
The Modernist version uses sour salt(or sodium citrate for technical types) as an emulsifier so the cheese doesn't separate when you heat it. That way, you don't need anything else like flour, you can just use cheese. So it tastes VERY cheesey, which is fantastic IMO.
Mature Cheddar & Aged Gouda
Water, Wheat Beer, Sodium Citrate(5% by weight of the cheese) - Simmer then add the cheese until it melts. Cool
Add the Macaroni and 3x the weight of cold water. Bring to the boil and leave until al dente(7 minutes). Most of the water has gone by now(absorbed and evaporation). DON'T DRAIN! you want to keep the starch that has leaked into the water.
Add 1.6 times weight of pasta of the cheese sauce from earlier. Stir until melted
it is fantastic. More cheesy than Steps at an ABBA convention.
If anybody is interested, I can look up the actual recipie
- Joined
- 27 Apr 2004
- Posts
- 107,330
- Location
- In bed with your sister
Oh for God's sake, not another one
What a ridiculous carry on for a plate of macaroni. There's nothing wrong with the tried and tested method. The 'flour etc' doesn't 'dilute' the flavour at all - it's part of the dish ffs. As long as you ensure the flour is cooked properly and use a decent quality mature cheddar (preferably Scottish
), the 'traditional' method is delicious. What you suggest is utterly ridiculous. I would love to meet Heston Blumenthal and punch his lights out - he kicked off the trend for all this 'scientific cooking' malarkey. There are so many people nowadays who can't see past this stuff to the joy of combining good ingredients to make tasty, simple dishes.
By all means eat this stuff in a restaurant if that's what floats your boat but why put yourself through the pain of searching out the ridiculous ingredients and equipment just to slavishly copy someone else's chemistry experiment when the traditional dish, when cooked well, is perfectly fine?
Soldato
- Joined
- 26 Dec 2003
- Posts
- 6,848
- Location
- Cambs UK
It takes 15 minutes total and has 1 "fancy" ingredient, and that is a salt.
Melt cheese, add some salt, boil pasta, add melted cheese.
The complicated equipment is a saucepan.
Just thought people would like to read a SIMPLE recipie that every single person I know who has tried it says it is vastly superior to the traditional method.
My mistake
Melt cheese, add some salt, boil pasta, add melted cheese.
The complicated equipment is a saucepan.
Just thought people would like to read a SIMPLE recipie that every single person I know who has tried it says it is vastly superior to the traditional method.
My mistake
- Joined
- 27 Apr 2004
- Posts
- 107,330
- Location
- In bed with your sister
There are several things I don't like about this recipe - apart from the fact it sounds more like a chemistry experiment than a recipe
Firstly, Sodium Citrate isn't an ingredient, it's an additive - E331 to be exact. Secondly, I would suspect that most people won't have wheat beer in their fridge on a regular basis.
Next, there's a lot of scope for things to go wrong. For one thing:
This makes the assumption that all pasta is the same and will absorb water at the same rate and take exactly the same amount of water to cook to Al Dente, which is nonsense. If you get the water ratio slightly out, your macaroni cheese will either be too sloppy or too dry.
I think the thing I object to most about this particular cooking fad is that it reduces cooking to a science lesson. When I experiment in the kitchen, it's with different ingredients or different quantities of ingredients or altering the cooking time. Experimenting with cooking to me shouldn't be about faffing around with stuff you'd find in a chemistry lab. Perhaps I'm just old fashioned.
Also, I wonder how much better people really think these science experiments are. I wonder how much of the "This is the best macaroni cheese, steak, chips, rice pudding - whatever - I've ever tasted" is genuine and how much is placebo or "The emperor's new clothes" effect.
I know I'm fighting a losing battle here but I will continue to rail against this current fad and no amount of persuasion will change my mind. You carry on with your science experiments and I'll coninue on down the path of the culinary Luddite
Experimenting with ingredients can be dressed up as 'classic cooking' or whatever else you want, but what it really involves is relying on emprical evidence to tweak and refine a recipe iteratively.
'Molecular gastronomy' is just applying more scientific rigour to what chefs have been doing for years. Two different methodologies, thats the only difference I see.
'Molecular gastronomy' is just applying more scientific rigour to what chefs have been doing for years. Two different methodologies, thats the only difference I see.