Mac and Cheese dilemma
I was reading the "required eating" section of our lovely Serious Eats website and came across a post about mac and cheese. I make my mac and cheese with bechamel and gruyere as well as fontina ... but I don't bake it once the pasta and cheese sauce are mixed together. Every recipe I see calls for baking it after that step and I don't understand why. I don't want mac and cheese I can slice, I want to scoop into it and have it be creamy. Does anyone else not bake it? Am I the only one? And for those of you who do bake it, why do you do it?
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20 Comments:
Baking the M&C forces the M of the duo to absorb more moisture and creates a more concentrated flavor as well as a less liquid end product. If you like yours extra creamy and unbaked, don't sweat it. If you want any type of bread crumb topping, just add one and broil your M&C a few minutes. You'll have the benefit of a crusty top without having to bake the M&C. (Just watch it closely - broilers can get away from us really fast.)
chiff0nade at 6:30AM on 03/05/08
I second @chiff! For the record, the crusty top is my absolute favorite!!
crazyspice at 7:59AM on 03/05/08
I always bake mine I love the chewy crusty parts of the M&C . But like Chiff said if you dont, hey its all cooked throughly so go for it. Btw hold the bread crumbs on mine PLEASE, that just tastes nasty to me.
huney_bumper at 8:04AM on 03/05/08
@ Huney - I must admit the whole "bread crumb topping" thing was relatively new to me as my mom never topped her scratch M&C. However, crust addict that I am ("Hello my name is Chiffonade - and I'm a crust addict...Hello Chiffonade...") I grew to love the crusty top.
Saw David Lieberman do something I'd like to try one of these days - he did a Mexican flavored M&C with peppers and chili powder and used crushed up tortilla chips for the topping. I generally reserve my tortilla chips for an excellent salsa and don't usually consider them an "ingredient" in a recipe but I must admit, this looked great.
chiff0nade at 9:28AM on 03/05/08
It all depends on time for me. If it's a hurry up meal, no baking, but it has to have a bread crumb topping (quick run under the broiled). My preference though, is baked. I think it develops the flavors more and I don't want it runny. Might be more a texture thing. If I'm baking, I don't cook pre-cook the macaroni as long. Nothing worse than mushy pasta. I would only do it last minute if one of my children requested it and there wasn't time or oven space to bake.
PerkyMac at 9:36AM on 03/05/08
I also prefer the creamy scoopable mac and cheese to the baked kind. My go-to recipe is Alton Brown's stovetop Mac & Cheese
Chocolate/Olive
Vegetarianka at 9:55AM on 03/05/08
Agree. It's all about the crusty top for me.
bitchincamero at 10:32AM on 03/05/08
I baked my m&c last night mainly because the husband was getting home late from work and I wanted to prolong the cooking process! If I'm in a hurry and want to eat I do the stove top method and serve it. But if I'm feeling nostalgic or want some real comfort food, I bake it. I just recently started using breadcrumbs- last night's m&c was topped with panko for extra crunch.
I also like that crispy outer edge you get when you bake it. I didn't bake it long enough last night to acheive it, but it is good stuff!
AuntJone at 10:51AM on 03/05/08
PumpkinBear, I'm with you! Now, I have a confession to make - I'm not a big fan of breading (e.g., when I make chicken "fingers", I season them, dip them in flour, then in egg, and then - onto the griddle they go, no breading involved, and we all love it this way. Weird, I know. So I won't tell you what I did when I was served breaded shrimp cakes:-)). I love crusts, but not breadcrumb crusts. So no, I don't bake my mac & cheese either (other than that one time when I tried the thanks-to-frederika-now-famous overnight mac & cheese, but there were no bread crumbs involved).
brooke29 at 11:33AM on 03/05/08
I think a lot depends on what kind of M&C you first had. My mother never baked hers; it was a fast school night supper with long slurpy macaroni pieces in a cast iron skillet. (She was a teacher, and school nights plus a normal suppertime of 5 p.m. meant hit the door running - something many of us can identify with 50 years later, yes?) Many of the baked ones I've had just don't seem to be cheesy enough for me, frankly, but YMMV. Cheesy crusts on other things like au gratin potatoes, I do adore.
lemons at 12:04PM on 03/05/08
I like it baked AND creamy. Love the crusty parts, but that has to mean browned cheesey top and edges -- not crumbs.
When I know I'm going to bake it, I undercook the cheese sauce so it's fairly runny, and I undercook the mac so it's less than al dente. Then, I usually end up with a crusty, creamy mac'n'cheese.
Although, I do have a tendency to break the sauce, whether baked or stovetop, and then, of course, creamy's out the window.
Sigh. It's one of my more frequent and inexcusable operator malfunctions.
LoCo at 12:10PM on 03/05/08
I prefer macaroni and cheese to be unbaked, without a crunchy topping, but that's how my mom made it when I grew up.
blush at 12:34PM on 03/05/08
I go both ways... but I tend to bake it a bit with extra cheese on top for that crusty top. I never have put breadcrumbs on it...
I grew up with the blue box and powdered cheese - so I understand the convenience of just mix and eat... I do that sometimes.
MadelynRodriguez at 1:29PM on 03/05/08
I used to love that govt surplus cheese my gran used to get at the senior center. Chiff is right if you do not bake it the flavor is not quite right. I add egg to mine its a cheese custard. So it requires baking.
JerzeeTomato at 3:41PM on 03/05/08
I often cheat and use Annie's to start, and then add to it with a bunch of my favorite cheese-of-the-day. Carmelized onions and garlic go well, prepared separately and mixed in late, and when I want to go back to my childhood, I'll crumble potato chip crumbs on top as well as more shredded cheese ["Mr. & Mrs. Whitetrash, your table is ready"].
I agree on the careful broiler crusty'ing. In our house we fight for the crusty parts.
A week ago I shredded the meat off of a left over turkey breast [thanks to Cook's Illustrated for help on making that delicious] and baked it into the M&C. Scrumptious.
Nursie at 6:57PM on 03/05/08
Tried a baked version last week and my kids HATED it! Not one of the three enjoyed the crusty top. They were used to the stove top creamy version. Cabot cheddar, and as my daughter likes to say as she takes
over this recipe(she is 9) Stand back mom, I'm in control! She throws
wads of butter and some half and half in the bowl, and then into the pot.
VOILA
donnie at 10:04PM on 03/05/08
Tried a baked version last week and my kids HATED it! Not one of the three enjoyed the crusty top. They were used to the stove top creamy version. Cabot cheddar, and as my daughter likes to say as she takes
over this recipe(she is 9) Stand back mom, I'm in control! She throws
wads of butter and some half and half in the bowl, and then into the pot.
VOILA
donnie at 10:18PM on 03/05/08
My mom used to make it without using a base sauce, she layered macaroni cheese milk and a little flour in the caserole dish, covered it and somehow through mom magic, it always came out perfect. I've tried her method but it never comes out.:( Has anyone ever tried to make M&C this way? and were you sucessful?
huney_bumper at 8:42AM on 03/06/08
I just made my first sauce-based mac & cheese a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't tried it before because I don't like it creamy. I come from a put-egg-in-it-layer-the pasta-and-cheese type of family. I prefer mac & cheese you can slice.
With that said, I had mac & cheese with truffles at a fancy hotel in December and I realized that creamy had potential. This execution wasn't perfect, but I could see the merits of creamy. I made it myself a couple of weeks ago and it rocked. I based it on Ina Garten's recipe for Grown Up Mac & Cheese, with a few modifications. The key for me is a really thick sauce. If it's too soupy, it's gross and yes I bake it. (It helps dry out the liquid, melt the extra cheese on top or crisp up your bread crumbs.)
http://nujoikitchendiary.blogspot.com/
NuJoi at 2:06PM on 03/06/08
I prefer mine creamy and unbaked, too. No crumbs for me!
My mom cooked hers atop the stove, as well, but the leftovers went into a casserole dish the next night and into the oven (sans crumbs). The best of both worlds, huh? Back then, before microwaves, there was really no other palatable way to reheat leftover mac and cheese.
MelsDiner at 8:30PM on 03/10/08