Liveblogging: Macaroni & Cheese from Scratch, Pt. 4

by Sarah J. Gim, Posted Dec 25th 2005 @ 9:30PM

There are two camps when it comes to macaroni and cheese. Most people make a sort of bechamel sauce over the stovetop, add cheese, then toss the cheesy bechamel with cooked noodles. The minority tosses cooked pasta with ingredients separately, letting them come together gradually over the course of several add ingredients/stir/bake cycles. I am a lemming. I went the stovetop sauce route.

The benriner actually came in quite handy to grate 1/2 onion for the sauce.

I used the pot in which I cooked the penne to melt 1/4 c. butter (for the mathematically challenged like me, that's 4 T. or 1/2 a stick) and cook the grated onion until soft, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle 1/4 cup flour over the onions and butter and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Whisk in 4 c. milk (I had to use nonfat because that's all my Mom had in the fridge), bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer.

While it's simmering, add 1 T. hot sauce (I almost had to use sriracha, but thankfully, I found some Tabasco), 1 t. salt, 1/2 t. black pepper, and 5 mustard packets. Of course, if you actually have dry mustard, use 1 1/2 t. of that, but then I can't guarantee results like mine, since I used what I had.

Remove pot from heat and temper 2 large eggs. Okay, so I'm going to admit right now that on the first attempt, I didn't temper my eggs very well. In fact, I pretty much made a small bowl of creamy egg drop soup, which I dumped in the sink. On the second attempt at tempering, it was better, but the stupid eggs still made the sauce grainy. In the sink.

I successfully tempered 2 eggs on the third try, and dumped the whole thing into the pot of sauce. Add 5 cups of shredded cheese and stir until it's all melted. Dump cooked pasta into sauce, stir, then pour it all into a buttered 2 quart casserole. There will be a tiny bit leftover, but hey, what the heck are you supposed to eat for lunch if you don't have anything to taste on the way to dinner?

The casserole goes in a preheated 350 oven for 30 minutes.

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

12-26-2005 @2:45AM tr said... why the trouble with egg tempering? did you beat your eggs before adding the hot liquid? or did you add the eggs into the hot liquid instead of the other way around? i don't mean to sound condescending or anything, i'm just wondering what problems you had with the tempering. i've always found tempering straight forward, and never had any problems with it, but friends i have who cook, or are just starting to cook, have this fear of certain techniques, tempering being one of them (beating and folding in egg whites is another, like in souffle making).

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12-26-2005 @11:56AM sarah said... you don't sound condescending at all.

i beat the eggs in a small bowl.

added a small amount of the milk mixture ...

BOOM - egg drop soup in my bowl

second time, same thing.

i don't temper eggs often. probably why it took me so long. :)

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