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Recipe

Macaroni Cheese

before thanksgiving I like to do a cleanse

I called it a cleanse. It is a cheeseburger and a dish of macaroni cheese at my desk, and it is exactly the right amount of serious.

There is one thing that ruins macaroni cheese and it is heat. Cheese added to a boiling sauce splits — the proteins seize, the fat comes out, and you get something grainy and oily that cannot be recovered. The pan comes off the stove, and then the cheese goes in.

Grate it off a block. Pre-grated cheese is dusted with cellulose to stop it clumping in the bag, and that same powder is what makes a sauce gritty.

Feeds
6
Hands-on
25 minutes
Cheese
Off the heat
Grate
From a block

Twenty-five minutes on the stove. It can go in the oven afterwards but it does not need to.

Cheeseburger and macaroni cheese at the desk
Shot the night it was made. Open the picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The pasta

  • 1 lb elbow macaroni
  • Well-salted water

The sauce

  • 5 tbsp butter
  • 5 tbsp flour
  • 4 cups whole milk, warmed
  • 1 tsp mustard powder
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • A scrape of nutmeg
  • 1 tsp salt and plenty of white pepper

The cheese

  • 3 cups sharp cheddar, grated off a block
  • 1 cup gruyère or jack, grated
  • 1/2 cup parmesan

How it goes

  1. 1 — Cook the macaroni two minutes short

    It carries on cooking in the hot sauce. Pasta boiled all the way and then sauced goes soft and loses its shape by the time it reaches the table.

  2. 2 — Butter and flour cooked two full minutes

    Whisked together over medium until it smells biscuity rather than of raw flour and has gone faintly golden. This is the step that decides whether your sauce tastes of anything.

  3. 3 — Warm milk, a splash at a time

    Poured in slowly with constant whisking so each addition is smooth before the next. Cold milk all at once lumps immediately. Simmer five minutes until it coats a spoon.

  4. 4 — Mustard powder, paprika, nutmeg, pepper

    All into the sauce now while it is still cooking. Mustard powder is the one that matters — it makes cheese taste more like cheese and nobody can tell you why.

  5. 5 — OFF the heat, then the cheese, in handfuls

    Pan off the stove entirely. Cheese added a handful at a time, each one stirred until it disappears before the next. The residual heat is more than enough.

    pro tip — If it does split, take it off, add a splash of cold milk and whisk hard. It sometimes comes back. Easier not to boil it.

  6. 6 — Fold the pasta through and let it sit two minutes

    Drained macaroni into the sauce, folded, then left alone for two minutes. It thickens as the pasta drinks some of it, so make the sauce looser than you think you want.

  7. 7 — Into the dish, with more cheese on top if you like

    Straight into a dish and eaten, or a handful of cheddar over the top and three minutes under the broiler for a browned surface.

A cheeseburger on the side of it. That is the cleanse. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.