Perhaps because it's one of the first things I learned to cook, I have always been obsessed with macaroni and cheese. I have tried making it lots of different ways, some more successful than others. However, I still haven't stopped searching for the "perfect" macaroni and cheese, and I would like others' input on this topic. As I understand, there are three basic ways to make macaroni and cheese: 1. The first, and more popular version, involves a bechamel sauce to which cheese is added (I believe this is called a "Mornay" sauce) and pasta. The pasta and cheese sauce mixture is placed in a casserole and topped with grated cheese or a crumb topping and then baked until the top forms a crust. One can also just eat the cheese sauce and pasta, without baking. I think the macaroni and cheese texture is usually perfect at this stage, but I want the crust too. 3. The second version has a "custard" base. The pasta is mixed with cheese and eggs and milk. I am less familiar with this method. I have tried a couple versions, though not recently. One, which involved evaporated milk was very tasty, but extremely heavy -- I found it difficult to eat more than a few mouthfuls without feeling sick. I have also noticed that "cafeteria" versions of macaroni and cheese sometimes seem to have what I think of as "scrambled egg residue". This is not very appealing to me. 4. The third version simply involves layering or mixing pasta and grated cheese in a casserole and baking. There might be an addition of milk and/or butter, and other seasonings. This method is not very interesting, but it is almost impossible to screw up. I tend to follow the first method. Lately, when I make the white sauce, I heat the milk slowly with carrot, celery, onion, garlic, sometimes pear and sometimes a chili pepper. I then strain the "infused" milk into some roux, and whisk it to form the white sauce. Some people might think the pear sounds strange, but it adds a mild sweet and tangy flavour that I think goes well with cheese. I then add nutmeg and sometimes mustard to the white sauce. Then I stir in grated cheese. I usually use mainly old white cheddar and I always add some parmesan. Sometimes I reserve some of the cheese, and mix it into the noodle-cheese sauce mixture or layer it between the noodle-cheese sauce mixture. I have also tried layering mozarella (not the fresh kind) with the noodle-cheese sauce mixture, in order to produce a stringy-cheese texture. Sometimes, this has seemed like a bit much. I usually top the casserole with Panko and bits of butter. When I boil the pasta, I leave it very underdone, because I find it cooks so much in the oven. I find that when cooked to just "al dente," the pasta gets very overdone in the oven. I tend to like the flavour of my macaroni and cheese, though I am open to suggestiongs. My main questions about macaroni and cheese are mostly related to texture. I think it is fairly common to find that white-sauce based macaroni and cheese either has a "grainy" texture. This happens to me sometimes, but not always. I am not sure that the custard version would fare better, mostly because I am afraid of either excessive heaviness or the "scrambled egg residue." I would be interested in others' input on this issue, though. Anyhow, my more focussed questions are as follows: 1. How much does the type and quality of cheese matter? I make macaroni and cheese fairly often and it seems to me to require a lot of cheese. I am a graduate student and on a limited budget, so I try not to use very expensive cheese for this dish. Am I missing out? I read somewhere that cheddar tends to separate from the sauce and the best results come from using a combination of cheddar and colby. Has anyone tried this? 2. Most macaroni and cheese recipes suggest baking the casserole for a fairly long time. I have found that in this process the pasta seems to absorb a lot of the liquid in the sauce and the remaining sauce winds up grainy. For this reason, I bake the casserole for a short period of time (10 minutes) and use the broiler to brown the top of the casserole. Does anyone else use this method? Has anyone else had the same problem? 3. I find that the pasta always absorbs a lot of the cheese sauce. I used to always wind up with "dry" and grainy macaroni and cheese because too much liquid had been absorbed in the baking process. Now, I always make what initially looks like an excessive amount of cheese sauce. After it's baked, it's usually just right. However, sometimes I over do it, and there is just too much cheese sauce. What do people find is the right ratio of cheese sauce to pasta? I realise that I've probably written too much here. I guess I really am obsessed with macaroni and cheese.
