Baked macaroni and cheese, macaroni au gratin, no matter what you choose to call it, it adds up to one undeniable comfort food.
This week's Carnival of the Recipes will be hosted by triticale, the wheat/rye guy. If you check his blog next week, Monday or so, you will find an entire post dedicated to macaroni and cheese recipes. If you have a blog, submit a post about macaroni and cheese by emailing the link to recipe.carnival@gmail.com.
This post is my submission. Macaroni and cheese has been high on my favorites list since I was a kid. We didn't have much money (my Dad went back to college with three kids in junior high and grade school, and another on the way).
My Mom, quite the looker in her day, took us kids to the local supermarket and made a deal with the deli-counter guy. He'd save the cheese ends that were too small to slice, and keep them in a bag for us. Every few days, one of my siblings or I (or any combination thereof) would go to the store on our bikes and the guy would give us a bag of cheese ends, for which we'd be charged a dollar.
Mom would grate them and make macaroni and cheese. We ate very well, as always. Mom is a great cook, and even in times of relative deprivation, we ate better than anyone else I know/knew.
This recipe uses Emmenthaler Swiss cheese, though a mixture of Emmenthaler and Gruyere is wonderful. I have to confess that I have taken to buying Boar's Head Gold Label imported Swiss, as it is quite consistent. I've found that just buying Emmenthaler can get me a delightful, nutty cheese, or a bland, rubbery one.
1 pound tubular pasta
1 pound Swiss cheese
1 cup whole milk
Butter
Put a large pot of salted water on the stove to boil. When it boils, add pasta and cook until al dente (it will cook more in the casserole, so undercook it just a bit.) Drain.
While the pasta cooks, grate the cheese (I like a Mouli grater for this job, or the grater attachment to my KitchenAid Mixer).
Grease a deep ovenproof casserole dish with oil or butter.
Assemble the casserole: put 1/3 of the pasta in the dish. Top with 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat twice, ending with a nice thick layer of grated cheese. Dot the top with butter (about 1 ounce in small chunks sprinkled across the top gives a nice crust). Pour a cup of milk over the top. (For a very rich casserole, use half-and-half, or pour some cream on top as well.)
Bake at 325 degrees for one hour, or until top is golden brown. This will give you nicely melted cheese that forms strings when it is served.
You can also put a layer of ham (we used to use Spam, and it turned out delicious) under the top cheese layer, and sometimes we'll put some spinach (thaw a package of spinach leaves and stick it in there) between the inside layers, where it will cook as the casserole bakes. The latter gives the illusion that there is something healthy about this dish.
We serve this with an optional, simple tomato sauce: Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Mince a small shallot (and or 2 cloves garlic) and add to the hot oil, stirring until it is a light yellow and translucent. Add a 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes (or the equivalent in fresh tomatoes, or Pomi, or whatever you prefer). Season with fresh basil and salt and pepper.
Serve with a green salad.
I confess I cannot stop myself from overeating when faced with this meal. Which is why I only make it when I have family visiting from out of town. For that reason, I was forced to borrow the picture from Recettes. That's just what my dish looks like, though it is made differently (the link uses just one layer, no milk or butter, and broils the result. Probably tasty, all the same.
Hello Natalie,
Thanks to have made some advertisement about my recipe "Gratin de Macaronis au Jambon"
Sincerely
Andre
Posted by: Andre | May 15, 2007 at 04:17 AM