The Occasional Foodie: Real Mac and Cheese

        Macaroni and cheese is one food that is purely American. I can’t think of anyone that I know who doesn’t like mac ‘n’ cheese. The problem is, the delicate dish that most people know is bought off the shelf. Sure pasta is pasta (more or less), but what is up with the “cheese” sauce that we are being fed? It’s either a power to which one is instructed to add butter and water or its a highly-processed hydrogenated oil based cheese product. Gross.

        Just like with the alfredo, it doesn’t have to be this way. Really good mac and cheese is just as simple to make as chicken alfredo, perhaps even easier.

        Again, you will need
                1 quart cream (heavy whipping cream is the best)
                1 cup butter (clarified if you have it)
                1 cup flour
                1 lb.         macaroni
                4-5 cups cheddar cheese (shredded. Also, make sure you look at the ingredients of the cheese you buy. The main ingredient should be milk! If it contains a lot of oil, you might as well have just bought the stuff off the shelf.)
                1 cup breadcrumbs (crackermeal, not crumbled slices of bread)
                seasonings and extras to flavor.

        First let me explain what I mean by extras. Mac and cheese is a classic dish—it doesn’t need to be fancy. However, there are plenty of ways to dress it up. I have seen recipes that call to use thyme and rosemary in the roux for flavor. I’ve also seen a recipe which includes a dash of truffle oil added to the roux. None of this is necessary, but it does make for an interesting and flavorful experience. Personally, I like to use Italian breadcrumbs and include a dash of basil and oregano in my roux. I also include Italian cheeses like asiago, provolone, or romano instead of cheddar at times. It’s up to you, experimenting in the kitchen makes for a better cook.

        Lets get right down to making the mac and cheese now.

1. Preheat your oven to 350—do it right now!
2. Bring about 5-6 cups of water to boil in a medium to large stockpot. When the water comes to a boil, add a pinch of salt and throw in the macaroni. Stir the noodles every couple to minutes to make sure they aren’t sticking to the bottom of the pot or to each other. After about 8-10 minutes, the noodles should be done. They should be soft yet firm—I’m sure you’ve had macaroni before so if you’re unsure, just taste it!
3. Spread your macaroni out in a baking dish. I prefer to use an 8 in. x 24 in pyrex baking dish, but any baking dish in which the macaroni can be spread out will do.
4. To start the sauce, we are going to use the same steps that we did to make alfredo. We are going to heat the cream up over medium-low heat until it is hot, but not boiling. When the cream has reached temperature, slowly fold in the shredded cheese a handful at a time. You can use as much cheese as you want; the 4-5 cups is a guideline only. Just remember to melt it into the cream very slowly so that it doesn’t clump. You might notice that the adding the cheese thickens the cream considerably. If you use enough cheese, you might even be able to skip the next step as a roux might not be needed. NOTE: save a portion of the cheese, at least one cup, to spread over the mac and cheese before baking.
5. To thicken the cheese sauce, make a roux by combining equal parts butter and flour, whisking in a sauté pan over medium heat until it bubbles. NOTE: you will likely not not need to use the entire roux so be sure to add the roux to the cheese and cream mixture slowly—use only a little at a time until the sauce reaches your desired thickness. ANOTHER NOTE: If you would like to add spices such as thyme, rosemary, basil, paprika, or oregano to your mac and cheese, you may add them to the roux. Many spices release their flavors more efficiently in a fat such as butter. You might also use a tablespoonful of truffle oil in your roux.
6. When your sauce is complete, pour it over the macaroni. You might toss the noodles around a bit to be sure that the cheese sauce is throughly incorporated. When you’re finished, sprinkle a generous amount of breadcrumbs over the surface of the macaroni and cheese as well as a generous portion of shredded cheese. This will form a crust when baking.
7. Bake the macaroni and cheese for about 10 minutes or until brown and bubbly. Personally, I like to cook it for a bit longer to ensure that the macaroni is nice and soft.
8. Eat and enjoy. I like to pair this with a ham sandwich on some crusty bread toasted with some olive oil.

        Remember that cooking is not difficult. Eights steps might seem like a lot, but they are each very simple. Now you can say that you’ve made the best mac and cheese your family has ever tasted.

The Occasional Foodie: Using Roux in a Béchamel; or Making Alfredo

I love chicken alfredo. When many people make it at home, they cook the pasta, sauté the chicken and then turn to Prego or Ragu to dress it—it doesn’t have to be this way!

Using the steps I outlined in my previous post, you should understand how to make a roux—just combine flour and fat with a whisk over medium heat until it bubbles (this will happen very quickly, btw). Now I would like to introduce you to one of the 5 mother sauces of French cuisine: Béchamel sauce. A Béchamel is simply a sauce made with cream and a roux. I’m sure a French chef would say that there is more to it than that, but in reality—it’s that simple.

Now lets imagine that chicken alfredo for a moment. Isn’t alfredo a creamy sauce? Why yes, yes it is! Lets quickly run through how to make a basic alfredo:

You will need:
1 cup Olive oil (extra virgin)
1 cup Flour
1 quart Cream (heavy whipping cream works best)
2 cup Parmasian cheese (the kraft grated kind works as well)
Garlic (power or granulated)
Parsley (flakes will do fine—it’s just for color, really)

You can adjust this recipe for your needs, but you will probably want between a pint and a quart of cream. In a small stock pot, heat the cream over medium-low heat. You mustn’t let it boil, but you do want it to give off a bit of steam—so remember: hot, not boiling!

When you’re heating the cream, throw in your parmasian cheese. You might need more if you want a strong cheese taste or less if you would like it to be more subtle. This is YOUR recipe—it should taste how you want it. It’s fine to see if your cream is to your liking as you are cooking.
You will also want to add the garlic while you’re heating the cream. About a tablespoon should suffice if you’re using the power, but again, this is YOUR dish; flavor it how you want. If you want to add a dash of salt, go for it!
Lastly, throw in some parsley for color. At this point, the cream should TASTE like alfredo even if it isn’t the consistency that one would expect.

Finally, make your roux. Use olive oil as your fat (this is Italian food, after all) and whisk in the flour over medium heat. You may not need a cup of each depending on how you’ve adjusted the recipe. Also as a reminder, the more roux you incorporate into the cream, the thicker it will be. Again, this is your recipe, you decide how thick you’d like it.

When the roux has come together, whisk it vigorously into the cream. If you are experimenting with thickness, you may incorporate small amounts of the roux into the cream at a time until you reach your desired thickness. You should notice that it starts to thicken almost immediately. If it doesn’t, you might need to add more roux. Also be mindful that when you use this process, the sauce will thicken as it cools as well. Your sauce should be very flavorful. All that’s left to do now is add your pasta and chicken (or shrimp) and eat. It’s as easy as that!

Now you’ve learned how to make a Béchamel sauce. This sauce can do a lot of things. I’m thinking that our next endeavor will be delicious homemade macaroni and cheese using a cheese sauce made from a Béchamel. I also plan to show you a couple of other uses to get you thinking—perhaps how to use a Béchamel in a seafood pot-pie or a lasagna. Stay tuned!

The Occasional Foodie: Making and Using a Roux

If you were to study French cooking, you would soon learn that there are 5 mother sauces in French cooking. I will not go into them presently, but they are certainly easy to find. I will say that 3 out of the 5 are thickened with a substance called a roux (pronounced ‘rew’). A roux is a simple thickening agent that can be added to a liquid to make a sauce. Many people use a roux to thicken a stew, others use it for gravies and some for creamy sauces.

Lets get started. You will only need 2 ingredients:

• A fat (classically it’s clarified butter, but also olive oil, bacon grease, Crisco, etc.)
• Flour

A roux is quite simple to make as you combine equal parts of these two ingredients— for every cup of fat, you use a cup of flour. You combine them in a skillet over medium heat using a whisk—it couldn’t be any easier!! It will combine easily and bubble when it’s ready to be used. The result will be a paste that you can add to any liquid you wish to thicken.
Different recipes that you may find will call for a blond roux or a brown roux. The only difference between these roux are the amount of time that you cook them. The longer you cook the roux, the darker in color it will become. For most purposes, a blond roux will do fine. Certain gumbos will call for a darker roux. The longer one cooks a roux, the more the fat molecules intwine with the starch and the harder it is to “break” the sauce.

I will address this problem in my next post. First, however, I would like to tell you my favorite uses of a roux. Check out the next post!

The Occasional Foodie

I have been thinking recently—most notably after I watched Julie & Julia, that I have some cooking skills that I could share with people.
The reason that Julia Child was so revered is that she brought classic French techniques to the United States, many of which entered into the mainstream world of cooking—the cooking that was being done by everyone’s parents and grandparents back in the 50s and 60s. Something has happened since, however. Cooking in the home is starting to diminish. What was once a nightly occurrence has turned into a weekly ritual at best in many households. It’s a shame that after all the effort that Julia Child had taken, we forget her most valuable lesson: love the food you eat.
Not only did Julia Child prove to us all that the art of cooking is important, but she also proved that anyone could do it. She barely knew how to mince veggies when she began and now almost everyone is familiar with her accomplishments.

So I would like to take her message and begin to spread it once again. We are at the dawn of a new age of cuisine. It seems that there is a new generation of aspiring young gourmands who fancy themselves “foodies.“ As I understand it, a foodie is someone who takes pleasure in exploring taste combinations that they’ve never tried before. They are like the Christopher Columbus of the food world. But let me take this metaphor further—though Columbus ”discovered“ the new world, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there before. Like Columbus, foodies pride themselves on personal discovery. It doesn’t mean that people haven’t been eating these foods for generations, but that the foodie is discovering new dishes.
Another aspect cuisine on which the foodie prides himself is quality ingredients. This means different things to different people. Some people want only to explore ingredients that are unfamiliar to them—only recently did I discover the wonders of goat cheeses. Others want to try the best goat cheeses that farmers and artisans have to offer. The point is this: to be a foodie, one must explore within self-imposed boundaries. Perhaps you want to learn how to make the best balsamic vinaigrette, perhaps you would simply like to learn how to bake a cake from scratch—if it’s interesting to you, go for it!

Lastly, start from the bottom and work your way up. Understand the foods that you are working with. One must know what their ingredients are capable of before they can master cooking. Simply understanding simple concepts can help someone be well on the way to becoming a gourmand. It wouldn’t hurt to understand some of the things that Julia spoke of in her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The French are pioneers in the world of cuisine and understanding simple concepts of French cooking can take your endeavors to another level.
I plan to offer a few of these concepts on my blog occasionally. They will be simple concepts that you can form to your own needs and perhaps I will even throw in a few recipes myself. I hope you enjoy. Remember, there is nothing to be afraid of when it comes to cooking—anyone can do it.