How to make Mac and Cheese / Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

mac and cheese

 🍴  Servings: 4


🥣 Category: Pasta


💪 Difficulty Level: 3/5 


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This Mac and cheese dish with a Cheddar topping is creamy and satisfying. It’s simple to prepare the cheese sauce from scratch on the stovetop, beginning with a roux and gradually adding milk, Cheddar, and Parmesan, resulting in a thick, luscious sauce that fills every nook and cranny of the noodles, than after baking will be so cheesy and lovely, and is so cheesy and wonderful after baking!

The history of the Mac and cheese

A medieval English cookbook already contained a description of the recipe under the name “Makerouns”, made from freshly kneaded, hand-cut dough mixed with cheese and melted butter. The first modern recipe appeared in an English housekeeper’s cookbook in 1770. He made the pasta by mixing it with Mornay sauce (Béchamel cheese sauce) and recommended only cheddar in the sauce! The pasta is poured into a baking tray, sprinkled with parmesan and baked until bubbling and golden.

The famous British Victorian cookbook, Mrs. Beeton’s “Book of Household Management”, already recommended the dish in two recipes. It describes the important rule that the pasta should not be cooked soft and that the surface of the pasta should be sprinkled with grated bread in addition to the Parmesan and placed in front of a “glowing fire” or under a salamander oven.

mac and cheese

But how did this dish come to the USA and become one of the best-known "American comfort foods"?

The key figures in this story are Thomas Jefferson and his cook (slave) James Hemings. The third American president tried the dish during his trip to Paris, and it really was love at first sight! So much so that he took the recipe back to his estate in Virginia, Monticello. He also tried to reproduce the dough, and in 1793 commissioned the diplomat William Short to buy a machine from France to make it.

in 1802, the president served a “macaroni pie” at a state dinner. The menu was reported on by the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, who apparently disliked the macaroni casserole.
In Mary Randolph’s cookbook (considered the first truly American book of this genre), it is already referred to as “macaroni and cheese”.
It was brought to Canada by British immigrants at the time, in the 1845 description it was baked between buttered pastry, and it was extremely popular!

Over time, the main ingredients were also produced on a large scale and his recipe appeared in an ever-increasing number of cookbooks. As they became accessible to a wider section of the population, macaroni and cheese lost their appeal for the upper classes.

Ingredients:

  • 500 g macaroni
  • 250 g Cheddar cheese
  • 100 g Emmentaler cheese
  • 100 g Mozzarella cheese
  • 4 cups (1 Litre) milk
  • 80 g butter
  • 40 g all purpose flour
  • salt, pepper, nutmeg

Steps:

  1. Melt the butter over a medium heat. Add the flour and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Gradually pour in the milk, stirring constantly, until the mixture is smooth. Simmer until the mixture thickens slightly, about 5-6 minutes, whisking constantly. Remove from the heat and season with salt, ground black pepper and grated nutmeg.
  2. Add all the grated cheese (set aside 50g of cheddar) and mix until melted into a homogeneous sauce.
  3. Cook the macaroni in salted water until al dente. Drain and add to the cheese sauce. Mix well. Pour into a deep baking tray and sprinkle with the remaining cheddar.
  4. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy your mac and cheese!

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