I’ve never endeavored to come up with my own Mac and Cheese recipe, but this is my favorite of the ones I’ve made. From the Waldorf Astoria cookbook. It might help with ideas.
Very interesting. I just smoked some home made pastrami last night and I was thinking about growing up with Pastrami and Eggs for breakfast, which as a kid I thought was the normal way to eat it. I now realize that it was my mother’s kosher version of Bacon and Eggs, sans cheese, or course.
That caused me to think about another oxymoron recipe to go along with my oxymoron sandwich - pulled pork on a challah roll. Mac and Pastrami and Cheese. Then I see your post on this recipe. Maybe I will try it with Pastrami and call it Macxymoron and Cheese.
That’s funny.
I do feel compelled to say your grandson won’t appreciate that name and if there are many kids involved he may get tagged with the Maxymoron nickname for a decade (and blame you for it). Kids these days don’t strike me as being as cruel as kids in my generation were, but best not try to find out.
Last night was late when I posted this so I didn’t give extended commentary. The pulled pork part I’ve only done once because I’m not a big fan of BBQ sauce in general. It is very good for the rare times I’m in the mood though. I mostly included it so you could have the chef’s complete take on the recipe.
I think the inspired part is the mix of cheeses (Taleggio in moderation with the other three more familiar flavors especially elevates this and they usually have it at Whole Foods), with the white wine, onions, the smokiness of the cayenne and the Worcestershire sauce.
Also, though the recipe says to boil to al dente, I usually undercook it a bit because it’ll go 15 minutes in the oven in a sauce. I think last time I added a bit more white wine to make the sauce a tad runnier and allow the pasta to absorb it in the oven without loosing sauciness in the finished dish. (I imagine @M.Kaplan’s grandmother would appreciate that.)
Anyway, whatever you guys decide to do, I hope it goes great!
We won third place in the most creative category. Everyone else was a professional. The judge - himself a food writer, told us that our Jambalaya Mac and Cheese with shrimp, smoke sausage and bacon on a base of Orzo with cheddar and parmesan was hands down the best food offered. Here is my grandson getting the trophy.
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Thank you for the update!
Congrats.
I love your zest for fun!
Congrats!
Looking forward to trying it!