/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.8631843]

I've never had mac and cheese, but I keep seeing it in American movies all the time. I'm gonna make some.

1. What cheese(s) should I use?
2. What do you serve with it?

[Anonymous No.8631855]

Cheddar is the authentic cheese.
BBQ ribs and coleslaw is great with it.

[Anonymous No.8631942]

>>8631843
Most recipes use cheddar. But you can add gruyere, gouda, or pretty much any melting cheese you like.

I normally just eat mac and cheese as a meal on its own desu

[Anonymous No.8631978]

>>8631843
Cheddar + Gruyere is pretty good, although you can use any melty cheese you want. Mac and cheese with kielbasa slices is fucking prime shit and is a meal on it's own.

[Anonymous No.8631984]

>>8631843
1. a mix of Gruyere and Sharp (well aged) Cheddar, with a little parmesan thrown in. Fontina is good in there too.

2. Salad. And if you really feel like some meat with it, I recommend grilled pork or chicken.

[Anonymous No.8631987]

>4 tables spoons butter
>4 table spoons flour
>400 ml milk
>a nutmeg nut
>salt
>black pepper
>1/2 pound of a sharp grated cheese, fresh, pre grated cheese has wood/paper pulp to prevent clumping. it will throw your sauce off.
>2 cups of rotini. fuck elbow mac, rotini holds sauce better

butter and flour into the pan on low-medium heat.

boil water with salt in it. once boiiling you cook that pasta till al dente.

once the flour and butter is melted and stirred together into a paste. you cook it a little longer till it starts to brown, but not any further.

start adding milk. stirring constantly.

grind half a nutmeg into it once all the milk is combined.

then salt and pepper to taste.

now start throwing in small amounts of your cheese. getting it all combined before adding more. add till you achieve the desired taste. you shouldn't use all the 1/2 pound of cheese.

now drain that cooked pasta and keep some pasta water to the side.

pasta into the pan with the cheese sauce. once it is combined, you check the texture. if it has got too thicc throw in some pasta water.

now serve in the pan you cooked it in. because dirtying another dish for serving is pointless.

[Anonymous No.8631994]

>>8631843
1. Cheeses are up to you. I usually go with a mix of good aged cheddar, aged gouda, gruyere, and a bit of asiago or pecorino.
2. A good salad. You need something to cut the richness.

[Anonymous No.8632003]

Who here /plebe/? This is my weakness.

[Anonymous No.8632028]

>>8631978
Add some tabouli to that for some greens, and it's perfect.

[Anonymous No.8632031]

>>8631987
>a nutmeg nut
That isn't a real thing

[Anonymous No.8632033]

>>8632031
Anon, I...

[Anonymous No.8632046]

>>8631978
Lobster or some type of seafood is pretty good too.

[Anonymous No.8632076]

>>8631843
I've been trying to make a recipe for homeade mac and cheese that's roughly as quick as the box and tastes good. I think I made a decent one the other night. Basically just made carbonara but used elbows and instead of parm I used gouda. The result was pretty good, must experiment further.

[Anonymous No.8632129]

>>8631843
Keep in mind any recipe that has you making a cheese sauce is shit. Any recipe that has you baking it is off to a good start

[Anonymous No.8632134]

>>8632129
>Keep in mind any recipe that has you making a cheese sauce is shit
You could not be anymore wrong

[Anonymous No.8632161]

>>8631987
>table spoons

[Anonymous No.8632163]

>>8631987
>metric measurement for milk
>americlap measurement for cheese

[Anonymous No.8633540]

>>8632163
Probably a bong. We use both.
t. Bong

[Anonymous No.8634600]

>>8631843
>get the cheapest, shittiest macaroni you can
>cook it
>add some milk and way too much of the shittiest, orange-est American Kraft Singles you can
>add tomato sauce to garnish

[Anonymous No.8634617]

>>8634600
Even the trashiest white trash people I know don't use kraft singles for mac and cheese, they at least have some class and use a bag of shredded cheddar shit

[Anonymous No.8634619]

I made some yesterday and decided to use every kind of cheese I had:
>cheddar
>gouda
>emmental
>brie
>mascarpone

Next time I'm gonna try gouda and mozzarella.

[Anonymous No.8634711]

>>8632003
Hell yeah. Creamy mac and cheese all the way. Fuck that watery ass kraft dinner bullshit.

[Anonymous No.8634790]

>>8633540
Shame on you bongs

[Anonymous No.8634808]

>>8631843
>but I keep seeing it in American movies all the time
Name 1 (ONE) move that does this.

[Anonymous No.8634825]

>>8633540
canada too

[Anonymous No.8634913]

Havarti is good for a more mild variant

[Anonymous No.8634916]

>>8634913
a mix would be nice

straight cheddar would be greasy as fuck

[Anonymous No.8634924]

>>8634916
Cheddar and Havarti perhaps? I use straight up Havarti, but Havarti is good shit and works anywhere and is underrated as fuck.

[Anonymous No.8634933]

>>8634916
use a really sharp cheddar and mix it into a white sauce.

[Anonymous No.8634969]

>>8631843
chedder+peperjack for sauce topped with motz

[Anonymous No.8635021]

>>8631843
I'm a big fan of aged extra sharp white cheddar for my mac and cheese. I also like to do sharp or medium cheddar and habenaro/jalapeño Jack with chorizo added at the end. I also throw either diced jalapeño in at the end or just add hotsauce to the sauce or both for extra spice.

Cheddar based Mac and cheese is really good with cayenne pepper added to give it a little bit of spice.

It's nice to turn it into a full fledged meal by throwing in all kinds of other stuff besides meat like broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, mushrooms, caramelized onions, peas, etc... What you add really depends on what cheese went into the sauce and what else you added. For example, I did white cheddar with hot Italian sausage and mushrooms the other night. That was tasty but I probably should have used a more mellow blend of cheese. Just try to imagine what would go well together.

The best Mac and cheese involves buying nice cheese and grating it yourself. It's not dramatically worse though if you use store bought pre-grated cheese.

Also, I read somewhere that you really should add kosher salt instead of iodized salt to the sauce. Especially if the sauce isn't sharp enough or isn't cheesy enough, it probably needs salt, not more cheese.

It gets so many dishes dirty though, it's a pain in the ass.

That's all my mac and cheese advice.

[Anonymous No.8635754]

>>8631843
1. It comes with a cheese powder already in the box.
2. Hot dogs

[Anonymous No.8636988]

>>8631843
Look this up on youtube.

Serve with good meat - any meat - if you want the full on American experience. You can also just serve it with some vegetables or eat it by itself.

[Anonymous No.8637645]

Velveeta Shells & Cheese Queso Blanco w/ Taco Bell Fire Sauce

What a time to be alive

[Anonymous No.8637689]

>>8631843
Use a sharp or old cheddar. Gruyere is also good. You're going for flavour here, not texture, so resist the urge to use lighter or rubbery cheeses.

Freshly ground black pepper will be a nice addition, but if you don't like the grainy texture then you can just mix in a bit of hot sauce. I use the really potent stuff so that you only need to add a drop to enhance the flavour.

I also like peas in Mac n' Cheese. Any soft veggie like that is good.

[Anonymous No.8637693]

>>8634619
I don't think you would even be able to taste mozzarella in Mac n' Cheese. It'll just make it stringy.

[Anonymous No.8637709]

>>8637693
>It'll just make it stringy.
Which is great. I've had had mac and cheese with mozzarella before, you just need some aged sharp cheese to balance it out, as well as a larger type of pasta such as penne.

[Anonymous No.8637750]

>>8631843
Listen, fuck all these faggots saying to use real cheese. Go buy a block of Velvetta and use that. Mac n cheese should be made with cheap American cheese

[Anonymous No.8637773]

>>8634617
Bullshit, adding a few slices of Kraft singles puts boxed mac n cheese over the top

[Anonymous No.8637776]

>>8637773

Nothing puts boxed mac and cheese over the top. It's a turd. Shit food for shit people.

[Anonymous No.8637782]

>>8635021
What a fucking faggot

[Anonymous No.8637788]

>>8637776
Its a staple food of the poor and kids. You don't make it to show off your fancy cheese. The only thing you should be adding to it is ketchup or cut up hotdogs

[Anonymous No.8637807]

>>8637773
Much rather a scoop of Cheese Whiz. Has a stronger flavour.

[Anonymous No.8637822]

>>8637807
Not a bad idea. This is the kind of experimentation I can get behind, not this Havarti and mushrooms shit

[Anonymous No.8637848]

>>8637822
Alright well let's shed our pretenses and do some real talk.

1. Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil.
2. Put whatever frozen veggies you want to in there. Corn and peas are the best. Wait till the water is boiling again.
3. Add pasta, and/or a lot of fresh spinach, and/or mushrooms either canned or fresh. This is typically the part where I'm getting rid of things in my fridge that are on the brink of being thrown out.
4. Boil this on medium heat for 7 minutes. Less if you want your mac to be more "al dente."
5. Remove the pot from the heat and strain the noodles & veggies.
6. Add a good scoop of margarine and a good scoop of Cheese Whiz. Let those melt and mix them in before adding the powder packet. Keep in mind that the veggies have increased the volume of your meal so that's why a bit more margarine than you would normally.
7. Once it's all mixed together, open a can of tuna and mix that in. Not too much, you don't want the tuna to dry out the pasta too badly.
8. Add some pepper. Mix that in too.
9. Now it's time to really make it wonderful. Add bacon bits and mix those in.

And voila. This will easily give you two meals even if you're a fatass that normally eats a box to himself. If you're going to be storing it and finishing it later, though, don't add the bacon bits because those get soggy if you leave them in. No culinary skill involved and no fresh ingredients needed either.

[Anonymous No.8638819]

>>8633540
We use both over here in Mexico too, mostly because of American influence

[Anonymous No.8639416]

>>8634808
And op i suggest tasting 3 types of mac'n cheese.

1)Homecook it with, for sure cheddar and maybe 2 other kinds of cheese. There are a lot of good suggestions here.

2) homecook it with velveeta cheese. This cheese is unique. Maybe use shells or spirals. Use the recipe on the box. If lazy it does come in a boxed form with the cheese premade.

3) cook a box of kraft mac'cheese. It comes in the blue box. Use real butter and to be really american cut up some hotdogs and throw them in there.

[Anonymous No.8639425]

>>8634808
Oops i forgot to add this.

[Anonymous No.8639756]

1. Whatever you want
2. Whatever you want

[Anonymous No.8639779]

>>8637773
Nah I tried that before because my friend insisted it was good, and it put kraft mac n cheese straight into the garbage can

[Anonymous No.8639788]

>>8634711
kraft boxed shit is only watery if you make it that way, just don't follow the instructions on the box exactly unless you want it to come out like soup

My golden rules are to cook the pasta for 7 minutes and use more butter than the box calls for, and only just enough milk for the powder to cover it all, if there's any liquid left in the pan you used too much milk

[Anonymous No.8639790]

>>8631843
HAVARTI IS IF YOU WANNA PARTY

[Anonymous No.8639979]

>>8631843
Any cheese can work. I made some with pepper jack tonight, but cheddar is generally the go to thing. I usually eat it as its own thing but I like to make some and serve it alongside ham or pulled pork sandwiches if I'm making either of those.

You can mix a variety of things into it too. Ham, bacon, crab, sausage, hot dog, all are good choices.

[Anonymous No.8640228]

>>8631843
I like to eat it with tomato soup.
The acidity of the tomato cuts balances out the cheese.

[Anonymous No.8640295]

>>8631843
I like gouda

cheddar is traditional

pepper jack is noice

[Anonymous No.8641338]

>mac 'n' cheese wit crab meat & peas
My dad makes this and it's the shit. I believe he uses gouda and it's delish

[Anonymous No.8641385]

anyone tried adding brie?

[Anonymous No.8641398]

>>8632031

[Anonymous No.8641405]

>>8632031

Are you being super fucking pedantic about it being a seed or are you just retarded?

[Anonymous No.8641407]

>>8641385
Never tried it myself, but I've seen a few recipes where brie is suggested. Would probably work well.

[Anonymous No.8641416]

>>8641385

This insanely fucking pretentious and supercilious jewish chick I used to work with brought a brie and bacon (yes) mac and cheese to a pot luck/cooking contest once. It was alright, but nothing special.

Of course, she acted like she was about to make us all cum from our tastebuds and mob her for her super secret recipe, so maybe that poisoned the well.

won that contest btw. Pumpkin chili.

[Anonymous No.8641420]

>>8641338
>delish

[Anonymous No.8641424]

>>8641420
wait is there something wrong with that word?
I don't usually visit this board, I was just lurking but my dad really does make good mac and cheese.

[Anonymous No.8641454]

>>8641424

"Delish" is perfectly fine to say in general, provided you're a 53 year-old woman from Nebraska.

[Anonymous No.8641471]

>>8631843
any cheese will do. Think of it this way if you have ever had fettuccine alfredo you have had something similar to macaroni and cheese using parmesan cheese.

[Anonymous No.8641519]

>>8631987
>throwing in small amounts of your cheese. getting it all combined before adding more.


IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: take it off the heat first, and let the ambient heat of tje sauce melt the cheese, especially if it's a sharp cheddar - having it over the fire runs the risk of having the cheese break in the sauce, turning it from smooth and cheesy to gritty and greasy.