A special MLK weekend treat for you -- the New York Times' oft-e-mailed Crusty Macaroni and Cheese recipe tested and reviewed by special EDOW correspondent and recurring guest star, Doug!
Though you know how much I love Land O'Lakes White American Cheese, the snob in me had trouble dumping a pound of it into my dish. So, I went with:
18 oz. extra-sharp cheddar
11 oz. Land O'Lakes White American Cheese
10 oz. Gruyere
7 oz. Gouda
(to 2 pounds of pasta)
I requested a mild Gouda, but the new Murray's lady--who clearly knew nothing about cheese (*gasp*)--gave me cave-aged Gouda instead.
The final dish was, as Chris said, "asskickingly delicious." But it's not mac & cheese--it's pasta with melted cheese, and I've come to appreciate the huge difference between the two.
First off, it's hard for me to praise its yumminess as a quality of the dish itself. There's so little preparation here that all the credit lies with the cheeses--ultimately, nothing gets exalted in the making. This, however, is the one thing that makes the dish considerable: it's incredibly easy to throw together.
The super-crunchy crust has that addictive textural quality--you keep eating because it's fun regardless of taste or hunger--though in the end it's just burnt macaroni with a hint of cheese. (I'm sure after hours of cooling the sophisticated gourmand gives way to the zoned muncher and I'm picking at the crust like it's toenail casserole--not an attractive quality in a dish, but of course that's just me.)
In the end, though, it comes down to béchamel: the lack of sauce creates a very uneven cheese-pasta ratio per bite. And the cheese doesn't coat the pasta so much as bind to it. Again, this makes for a yummy texture, but it's not worth the sacrifice: there's nothing in the world like a thick, velvety, slightly nutty cheddar cheese sauce. Surprisingly, this dish isn't for mac & cheese lovers--it's for lazy cooks, or lazy days at least.
(2 caveats: Though the recipe doesn't call for it, I wonder if a toss or two during the baking wouldn't reduce the unevenness; also, as you can see from the pic, we didn't use macaroni.)
--D
Did anyone try the creamy recipe? Reports, please. --G
UPDATE: Slate weighs in. Cliffs Notes: Mac and cheese needs roux. Incidentally, I made Charlie Palmer's Family Cooking recipe yesterday and I think it needs more cheese. Like, a lot more cheese.
I haven't made the Times' creamy version because so far I'm perfectly content with the Cooks Illustrated version, which is based on John Thorne's. I believe this is the one that the Times called 'delightfully trashy', for its use of evaporated milk. It's basically pasta and cheese (in ratio of roughly 1:1), evaporated milk, an egg, mustard powder, and hot sauce (I use sriracha), topped with toasted breadcrumbs. Fabulous. No need for mornay.
That sounds like the same one Alton Brown calls "Stove-Top Mac 'n Cheese" (sans breadcrumbs). Highly recommeded.
I can personally attest to the deeeeliciousness of Doug's not-really-mac and cheese. In retrospect, I think elbow macaroni would have worked better, because the cheese would have stuck in the smaller tubes better, but all the store had was rigatoni. Whatever. We devoured it. YUM.
I also like cavatappi, though it's not usually something you can find in a pinch.
Also, I think Doug was right to use gruyere. Mine had cheddar, mascarpone, and Prima Donna (kind of an Italian gouda). And I missed the gruyere.
And I say no breadcrumbs (which Charlie Palmer uses). As long as you're having mac n cheese, yummy slightly burnt, hard-to-digest cheese crusties are the better way to go.
Interesting... The classic macaroni and cheese, colonial era, was pretty much butter, cheese, and pasta. At least, that's how Jefferson supposedly made it. No bechamel. Recently I've seen a few anti-bechamel rants on this very topic, arguing that the curds that form are the antithesis of a good macaroni and cheese, and that it's far preferable to create, for example, a custard-like "sauce" using egg yolks and milk or even unsweetened evaporated milk.
I'm not religious in this particular battle; I do usually go the bechamel route (photos available via search for macaroni on my blog) but I've used several strategies, and had both successes and minor failures.
But you need not worry much about authenticity of your version dish in a post-Kraft world. Good ingredients are the best way to make good food... they're supposed to do most of the work.
Oh, I'm a little brain-dead... perhaps it was the very same article.