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Is there anything more comforting than a hot bowl of macaroni and cheese. When made from scratch and infused, it becomes the ultimate warm meal for a chilly day.
I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening —or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, mid-evening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early mid-afternoon, or perhaps the late-mid-afternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning…But never at dusk.
Steve Martin
- Homeroom Restaurant in Oakland, California
- Mac + Cheese Cookbook on Amazon
- Barilla Noodles on Amazon
- Ronzoni Noodles not on Amazon
- Tips from book:
- more cheese = more cheesy flavour
- don’t spend your money on fancy cheeses
- salt is a cheese’s best friend
- use good noodles
- Thrift stores are a great place to look for fun cookbooks
Bechamel Sauce + Classic Mac & Cheese
Equipment
- 1 pot
- 1 heavy bottomed saucepan
Ingredients
Bechamel (Mac) Sauce
- 3 cups whole milk
- 1/2 cup infused unsalted butter
- 2 teaspoons kosher or table salt
Classic Mac & Cheese
- 1/2 pound dried elbow pasta
- 2 cups Bechamel sauce
- 1.5 cups grated 2-year-aged sharp Cheddar cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Instructions
Bechamel Sauce
- Heat the milk in a pot over medium heat until it just starts to bubble, but is not boiling, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Heat the butter over medium heat in a separate, heavy-bottomed pot. When the butter has melted, add the flour and whisk constantly until the mixture turns light brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Slowly pour the warm milk, about 1 cup at a time, into the butter-flour mixture, whisking constantly. It will get very thick when you first add the milk, and thinner as you slowly pour in the entire 3 cups. This is normal.
- Once all the milk has been added, set the pot back over medium-high heat, and continue to whisk constantly. In the next 2 to 3 minutes the sauce should come together and become silky and thick. Use the spoon test to make sure it's ready. To do this, dip a metal spoon into the sauce -if the sauce coats the spoon and doesn't slide off like milk, you'll know it's ready. You should be able to run your finger along the spoon and have the impression remain. Add the salt.
- The Bechamel Sauce is ready to use immediately and does not need to cool. Store it in the fridge for a day or two if you want to make it ahead of time -it will get a lot thicker when you put it in the fridge, so you may a little milk to thin it out a bit when it comes times to melt in the cheese. Try melting the cheese into the sauce first, and if it is too thick then add milk as needed.
Classic Mac & Cheese
- Cook the past in salted boiling water until a little less than al dente. Drain, rinse the pasta with cold water, and drain it again.
- Add the sauce and both cheeses to a large, heavy bottomed pot and cook over medium heat. Stir until the cheese is barely melted, about 3 minutes. Slowly add the cooked pasta, stir and continue cooking while stirring continuously until the pasta is hot and steaming, another 5 minutes.
- Spoon into bowls and enjoy!
Notes
That’s it for this week friends. Please email me any questions, comments, pictures of your creations or anything else, I love hearing from listeners! Direct messages to bitemepodcast@fastmail.com or the podcast hotline.
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Stay high,
Marge