Baked Mac & Cheese

****UPDATE: I know hundreds of you have been trying to leave comments.  This has been fixed so feel free to leave dozens I MEAN HUNDREDS of comments from now on.


This is a recipe I got from Alton Brown.  Before this point I'd never had a baked Macaroni and Cheese that I actually liked, but I decided that if anyone could sway me, it would be Alton.

Also, we have a lot of macaroni.  A LOT of macaroni.  Like 25lbs of it.  I tried to take a picture but Miyagi said it didn't show it's true sized without something to compare it to.  So here is our macaroni stash compared to Miyagi's hands.  Oh, and this is only half our macaroni.  So . . .yeah.  We're pretty much going to be putting it in everything from now on.  Keep an eye out for macaroni popovers soon.

Unfortunately for this recipe we only needed 1/2 a pound, which rounded out to a little over 2 cups.  Go ahead and start this cooking in a big pot of salted water.  It doesn't really matter if this is done before the cheese sauce because it's all going to get baked together later.  I overcooked mine a bit but this would be better a bit on the under-done side.  Squishy noodles are never a good thing.

For the cheese sauce start with some butter in a large pot.  Large because we'll be combining everything in this pot eventually.  After the butter's melted add some flour and some dried mustard  and whisk it up good.

Check out my nifty black silicone whisk!  They're really good for mixing in hot pans without scratching them up.  They're also really good for flicking lava-hot cheese sauce out of the pan and on to your fingers.

Stir this around for about 5 minutes.  Keep the heat on medium-low and this will start to liquefy near the end.

While you're waiting grate a big pile of cheese.  The recipe calls for sharp, but we only had medium so  . . .whatever.  We like to live on the edge.  You can also use this time to chop up about 1/2 C of onions. I made Miyagi do it.  He's good with onions.

Add the onions, milk, paprika and a bay leaf to the pot and let it simmer for several minutes.  You'll notice it getting bubbly and thick.  We like bubbly and thick.  After about 10 minutes take the bay leaf out.  You don't want to get that sucker in a bite of mac&cheese so don't forget this step.

If you DO forget to take the bay leaf out, don't feel bad.  Give a prize to whoever finds it and play it off like it was intentional.

Now we're going to temper in an egg.  Yeah, I didn't know how to do this either.  When I saw this on the instructions I was like "Quick!  I have ten minutes to learn how to temper in an egg while the sauce is simmering!  THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"  Luckily it only took about 30 seconds to learn.  Because I'm so smart.

So here's what we do.

Grab the whisk attachment to your mixer because your real whisk is dirty and you don't feel like washing it.

Whisk up your egg in a bowl so all the white bits and yellow bits are friendly and cozy.

Scoop up some of your hot liquid and slowly drizzle it into the egg while mixing.  Basically you're trying to slowly introduce the hot liquid to the egg so that the egg heats up, but doesn't scramble.

Once you've mixed in the hot liquid you can slowly drizzle the egg mixture into the rest of the sauce.  It not really all that delicate.  As long as you add everything slowly and keep mixing you'll be fine.  The whole thing will take maybe a minute.

Now that you've tempered in an egg (way to go you Master Chef you!) add the cheese to the sauce, fold in the macaroni, and turn off the heat.

You're going to melt MORE butter in a pan (I know I know, just get over it) and add in a cup of panko crumbs and toss them around until they're all coated. 

For anyone not familiar with panko crumbs here are two helpful facts: 1) you can get them in the Asian section of your grocery store.  2) they're magic.  This is my first time using them and I'm already hooked.  Unless I need flavored bread crumbs I think these are going to be the new staple in my house and no one can say otherwise because what I SAY GOES!  Miyagi has no comment on the matter.

Layer everything in a baking dish; macaroni and cheese sauce, MORE shredded cheese, and your magic Panko crumbs.  Then pop this in the oven for about half and hour and you get . . .

This most amazing baked macaroni and cheese!  Ta daa!  Bet you didn't see that coming.

This made way more than Miyagi and I could eat.  And even though the recipe suggests saving left overs for fried macaroni and cheese I just don't know if I deep fry this in good conscience.  It's just too much.