Eating Alone – Mac and Cheese

My way of cooking macaroni and cheese changed. After some unsatisfying experiments with making it vegan, I now use cheese and butter when I am home alone for dinner. It is on the menu only one or two times per year, so I want it to be satisfying and memorable when I prepare it. I took inspiration for my most recent iteration from Massimo Bottura’s Kitchen Quarantine series during the coronavirus pandemic. Bottura layered the ingredients in a baking dish and I had an Aha! moment.

I have been a mixer. That is, the sauce, noodles, and other ingredients are placed in a bowl and mixed together, then moved to a baking dish and topped with something before baking. Bottura taught me to layer instead, which had never occurred to me. It could be life-changing. Here is what I did.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and greased a baking dish. Next I made a béchamel sauce with four tablespoons each of butter and flour. These two ingredients make a roux, which is cooked a couple of minutes. Milk is added with constant stirring until medium thickness, or it coats the back of a spoon. I embellished the simple sauce by grating some nutmeg into it.

Boiled pasta was ready to go. Either cook it for the dish, or use leftovers. This time, I emptied partial containers of different kinds of dry pasta until I had two cups and cooked until al dente. My thinking is the pasta should be similarly sized, yet that is a personal preference. There are no rules.

Get the cheese ready. This can be anything the cook wants. I like a sharp cheese and used four ounces of white extra sharp cheddar, half a cup of feta, and four tablespoons of grated Parmesan. I had thought to use Gruyère and bought four ounces made in Wisconsin for the project, but it didn’t pass the taste test. If it were Swiss Gruyère, it would.

Next is the layering. A thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the baking dish to cover. Next the pasta spread evenly. Distribute the chunks of feta evenly, followed by the cheddar. The rest of the sauce goes on top, and then into the oven for 30 minutes.

At thirty minutes see where we are. I pulled the dish out and sprinkled the Parmesan on top. I turned the oven up to 400 degrees and let it bake until the crust began to turn brown. The result is in the photograph. Based on the taste, I am now a layer guy.

Mac and cheese is an old dish. In Medieval times it was pasta layered with cheese and baked, not unlike what I did. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, English and European cooks began using a béchamel sauce mixed with cheese (a.k.a. Mornay sauce), and mixing it with the pasta before baking. Let’s not even talk about those Kraft mac and cheese boxes that originated in the 1930s (Mixers, not baked).

My native impulses had me arrive at a rustic-style product that was the antithesis of processed food. If I learned anything by being a part of the local food movement, it is that this kind of dish is what I want.