Teleidoscope

Sat, Jan 19, 2008

Mac and Cheese

Posted at 8:49 pm MST to Technology

I'm celebrating my repaired stove burner by making the Frittura Dousa that I had originally planned for Christmas or New Year's. I did the first-day prep today.

I also made some macaroni and cheese from scratch (which really needs both large burners to do it right):

400 degree oven 

1/2 pound elbow noodles cooked al dente

4 Tbs salted butter
3 Tbs flour
1 can evaporated milk
Vermont cheddar, asiago and American cheeses
water

breadcrumbs
grated Parmesan

Combine beschamel/cheese sauce and noodles in round casserole
top with crumbs and Parmesan
Bake 15 minutes

I used a microplane grater instead of the box grater for the cheese, this time. The cheese tends to scatter more, without the box to contain it, but it grates faster.

The beschamel came out well. The new risotto/saucier works great, and the porcelain interior makes cleaning out cheese sauce much easier than it would be in a steel pot. The main problem is that the pot is so heavy: I used a ladle to scoop out the sauce into the casserole instead of pouring it. (The free weight work may help, once I work my way back to meaningfull weights.)

But the final result was a bit bland. Next time I need to add more salt to the sauce, and maybe some white pepper. Possibly a little Parmesan in the sauce as well as the topping, too.

And less breadcrumbs and more cheese for the topping. I don't remember my Mom using a crumb topping at all on her mac and cheese (which was based on pure American cheese, not a blend) so a little goes a lot way for me.

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