Serious Eats: Recipes
The Coterie Room's Sweet Onion Mac and Cheese
Sweet Onion Mac and Cheese [
While I am almost always partial to baked macaroni and cheese, I sometimes lust after my childhood Velveeta-based concoctions. In Mac & Cheese, Ellen Brown adapts The Coterie Room's Sweet Onion Mac and Cheese to satisfy that craving. This is a recipe for sauce-lovers, but it's no Velveeta shells and cheese.
The sauce is based on soubise, a fancy French word for creamy onion sauce; onions are caramelized, pureed, and then stirred into a luscious cheese sauce with a lusty trio of fontina, Parmesan, and cheddar. A sprinkling of crisp fried shallots tops this decadent dish; they may seem to guild the lily, but their textural contrast is welcome amongst all of the creaminess.
Why I picked this recipe: Caramelized onions and fried shallots made this creamy mac irresistible.
What worked: Once again, I had no problems following the recipe as written, and I may just incorporate caramelized onion puree into all of my cheese sauces from now on.
What didn't: I found the sauce a little thick, and I found 5 minutes to be plenty of simmering time (instead of 10). Next time, I'd go down on the flour a bit (perhaps dropping it to 3 tablespoons or 1/4 cup instead of a full 1/3 cup).
Suggested tweaks: I'd like some more herbs in here for a bright contrast to all of the dairy, but otherwise there's not much here to tweak.
Reprinted with permission from Mac & Cheese by Ellen Brown. Copyright 2012. Published by Running Press. Available wherever books are sold. All rights reserved.
