Well, here’s yet another post nobody asked.
As a bog standard programmer I love organ music, hacking various stuff, and cooking Also it’s easier to satisfy my tastes and limitations that way too.
I’m not a skilled cook at all but I can make myself a semi-decent soup or bake something (casserole, quiche or pie). And here’s my short report on trying macaroni and cheese in three variations.
The first version was made after some recipe—cook pasta (I chose fusilli because it’s the only kind I had at hoof), make cheese sauce (essentially start with sauce thickener made from fried flour, add milk and melt a lot of cheese in it), combine together and bake in oven. Simple, filling and tasty. The only problem I found is that it thickens into a solid mass when cooled but it’s still enjoyable then.
The second version I tried was Kraft dinner. Just cook the pasta from the box and mix it with milk, butter and powder (from the packet inside the box) in still warm cooking pot. This version I found incompatible with me—not gross or allergy inducing, just after tasting one spoonful I could not bring myself to take another. Oh well, not a big loss.
And finally, käsespätzle. For this variation you take spätzle (the usual long thin variation sold in every supermarket here), mix it with cooking cream that has been boiled and with some cheese melted it, put the result into baking dish, sprinkle with more grated cheese and bake (I’ve also added chopped dried tomatoes because I had to put them somewhere). The result is tasty and more tender than the first variation. So I approve it too.
P.S. I don’t take pictures of what I cook, you want #opticalexperiments then and from a different person too.
Perhaps try grating an additional cheese on top of a baked macaroni and set your oven to broil briefly. Seconds, not minutes, typically—just long enough to brown the topping slightly. We use smoked cheddar for this as it’s readily available and makes a nice texture.
I’m also a fan of adding a bit of gouda to the main cheese sauce. A local restaurant here makes a gouda mac & cheese with bits of lobster meat that is surprisingly good.
Happy experimenting!
Yeah, i’m not really a fan of Kraft macaroni either, my mom made it a lot when I was little, and i liked it a lot then, but now it just tastes gross.
Hmm, interesting. Here it’s hard to find cheddar varieties and I’ve never been a fan of processed cheese so I’m experimenting with other kinds of cheese like raclette, Gouda and Grana Padano mixed together. At least I can’t complain about the results.
You might use some blue cheese or gorgonzola in the mix.
I approve the choice of fusilli.
(then you might try using flat large sheets of pasta and put some ground turkey in the cheese mix but that might be something different and too much lasagna :p)