Absolutely!
Devil's Tongue Mac n Cheese
I don't really have measurements... just do it by feel...
It's all about the sauce. You are just making a bechamel sauce, which is easy to look up online for specifics, but here's the basics
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Start by melting around 3/4 stick of good
salted butter in a saucepan. (I use a 3 quart saucepan)
While you're doing this, heat your
whole milk in another saucepan. I probably end up using 1 1/2 litres.
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now start sprinkling
all purpose flour into the butter and stirring it around. You basically add enough flour to make it a pretty thick paste... almost crumbly... and stir constantly so you don' burn any one part of it. You just want to cook it for a few minutes until it cooks out some of the "flouriness"and the color darkens slightly... but not brown.
It will be bubbling.Â
Now the milk.Â
If you have a Vitamix, this is really easy. Just add some milk and stir until it starts getting saucy. Once you get that going a bit, you can drop it in the Vitamix and whip it up smooth, then put it back in the pan to cook more.
If you don't have a Vitamix, you have to add the milk a little at a time and stir the crap out of it so you don't end up with lumps. Patience and elbow grease are the key. Once you get it to a certain point, it gets easier and you can add more milk without getting lumps.
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Now, keep heating it... just to a boil and then reduce the temp a bit so you can keep cooking but not burning it.
I generally make it thinner than you'd think... because after you add all the cheese and the pasta etc, it really thickens up.
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So, once that's cooked for a while, I add a pinch of yellow curry. Sounds crazy, I know, but it compliments the flavors really well. Just a pinch.
For Cheese, I use a big loaf of
Tillamook Medium cheddar and also
gruyere.
I probably end up using 1/2 of the loaf of cheddar total and just a small chunk of gruyere.
Grate those up and stir them into the sauce a little at a time so it stays smooth.
Taste the sauce. You can add
salt is it's not flavorful enough, but the cheese usually takes care of it.
Now for the heat.
Now, since I have a vitamix, I put come of the sauce back in the Vitamix and toss a large
Devil's Tongue in. Blend it smooth.
Otherwise, just chop one up fine and toss it in. I almost always make 2 batches... one medium heat and another really hot one.
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The final trick is to get your proportions right with the pasta. I've been using spirals lately, but jumbo elbows are great too.
Undercook the pasta. If it says 10-12 minutes, only cook it 4 minutes.
Measure out your noodles AFTER COOKING.
I personally like a saucy mac-n-cheese. So I do:
1 cup pasta to 2 cups sauce.
It will look totally wrong... you'll think you are making cheese soup when you look at it before cooking, but after 25 minutes in the oven at 350 and then a broil to crisp up the top, it'll all set up.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/yNqElI3G7JBYhBGb2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VqLwuvTM6WUmDWFg1
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I make the sauce in big batches and then cook up small portions here and there... except of course Thanksgiving, when I made a huge one with 3 quarts of sauce!
Enjoy!
Russell