RPCookin
Executive Chef
Oh wow puffin3, that sounds way more sophisticated than I have ever gone before! Using a fennel bulb is an interesting idea. I would definitely like to eat one of your mac and cheeses!
puffin, your first post looked more like a science text than mac and cheese recipes ever should!
Yeah... that's sort of what I was thinking... more like a lab report from chemistry class. And way more complicated sounding that any mac 'n cheese I ever made.
em, I'm another one who has made the sauce from bits and dabs of orphans cheeses. I also make my cheese sauce a simple way: melt butter, add equal amount flour, stir until they are blended smooth and just start to darken (I like my mac & cheese roux on the light golden side, not too brown). Then add your milk/cream, stir almost constantly until thickened. The common ration is 2 Tbsp butter/2 Tbsp flour/1 cup milk, one cup shredded cheese. I almost always use two cups cheese... Every once in a while I get a taste for just a little sauteed onion flavor in the dish. At those times I just add the minced onion to the butter as it melts and cook until it becomes clear. (I use just a bit more butter-to-flour than I would without onion.) Then proceed with flour, etc.
Another fan of shaped pastas. The more wrinkles and twists, the more places for the clingy cheese sauce to latch onto. Yum!
When we have leftover ham, I like to add chunks of that into the mac & cheese. I've always wanted to try it using a Swiss-style cheese for the sauce, but never seem to have any on hand when the ham is in the fridge.
I like rotini for mac 'n cheese... it has great sauce retention properties. And yes, ham goes well with anything cheesy.
For cheeses, anything with good melt properties works. This quote from Sara Moulton:
If you follow the tips below, you can count on a smooth sauce when you use Asiago, Cheddar, colby, fontina, Gouda, Gruyère, Havarti, Monterey Jack, or Muenster. Blue cheeses and soft cheeses such as Brie and Camembert also melt well if you remove the rind. When melting cheese, the following tips will help insure a smooth sauce. Bring the cheese to room temperature before using, grate or finely chop the cheese, thicken the sauce before adding the cheese, and heat only until the cheese has melted. Overheating can make the cheese harden and release fat creating a lumpy sauce.