Everywhere I look menus, magazines, and cooking shows I am seeing baked Mac n Cheese. Usually I leave all the big cooking in my boyfriend’s capable hands. But this recipe looked so easy and delicious I thought I would give it a try. Grandma liked to make her Mac and Cheese with spaghetti noodles but I prefer elbow noodles. The panko bread crumbs where a nice addition to the recipe they made the topping nice and crunchy. This was perfect both as a main course and as a side dish.
Usually my cooking skills are limited to thawing out previously frozen food and brewing coffee. As a result I had to look up a few cooking terms which I added to the recipe.
1/2 pound of elbow macroni (or spaghetti noodles)
3 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoon of ground (powder) mustard
3 cups of milk
1/2 cup of yellow onion, finely diced
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon of paprika
1 large egg
10 ounces of sharp cheddar cheese shredded
2 ounces of mozzarella shredded
1 tsp of kosher salt
fresh black pepper
Topping
3 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of panko bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a large pot of boiling salted water and cook pasta to al dente. In a separate pot melt butter. Whisk in flour and mustard and keep whisking for about five minutes. Make sure there are no lumps. Stir in milk, onion, bay leaf, paprika. Simmer for ten minutes and remove the bay leaf.
Temper in the egg (Eggs are beaten and a little of the hot mixture is stirred into them to warm them). Stir in the 3/4 of the cheese and season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 3 quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.
In a seperate pan add panko bread crumbs and 3 tablespoons of butter. Coat the bread crumbs with melted butter and then add the topping to the macaroni.
Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and rest for five minutes before serving.
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