I have made an epic macaroni cheese.
You don't need me to tell you about it. I'm sure if you like mac n cheese you've had the idea to make it at some point since March. If you've made it, I'm sure it's occurred to you to bung in some ends of cheese if you have them. You may not have had the end of a truffle brie from Christmas, but if so, rather your loss. I usually make at least a gesture towards veg in a mac n cheese - leeks or mushrooms, or at least sliced tomato on top. Yesterday? Pffft.
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| Pasta on the hob, white sauce full of Cheddar and a few truffle flecks. Yeeahhh. |
But I am here to tell you that I made this last night, before yoga. After yoga, I bunged it in the oven and then opened twitter, and... well. There was a lot of news.
I turned it off after a while, and went back to my sedative season 10 Time Team (which is great, if you need sedating - as who amongst us does not, currently?). And this mac n cheese was perfect, perfect company.
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| I cracked and had spinach on the side, okay? |
I'm doing all right, mostly. Normal cooking resumes this weekend. Four days into the working week and I've managed to stop work relatively early every day, which is good - I'd got into a bad nearly-6pm habit which wasn't really warranted. But there's no denying, the urge to hibernate and wallow in stodge like this is pretty strong.
That looks delish! I never somehow get the texture of mac'n'cheese right: wrong sauce:pasta ratio, or wrong wetness of sauce, or something. Do you have a foolproof method?
ReplyDeleteI really don't have a technique, which is unhelpful. I've learned not to add the cheese to the sauce when it's boiling, because curdling, but otherwise it's all by eye.
DeleteI tend to make a thicker sauce than I would as a soup or gravy base. But it's not super thick - probably 3 tbsps flour for the roux to about a pint of milk. The amount of cheese does a lot of the thickening. My eye there is *not* infallible - I've done two over-cheesy ones in recent years, both so rich they were borderline inedible.
This looks so good, macaroni cheese would be one of my Off Menu choices! For sauce I do 2oz butter, 2oz flour and 3/4 pint milk, otherwise it goes a bit runny. I've been making white sauce for so long that it's one of the few recipes I can do off by heart.
ReplyDeleteThanks both!
ReplyDeleteMac & Cheese is such comfort food, I totally approve! Add in vintage Time Team and you are fixed up for a zen evening. The husband is watching Season 7 at the moment (well, not at this very moment, but... - he's just watched the Spitfire in France episode. :)
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