Description

Tyler Florence teaches you how to make his ultimate macaroni and cheese.

Transcript

You know sometimes just a few words can really speak volumes like the history, Mac and cheese. I’m telling you what else could you possibly say about it? You know it, you love it, and you want it right now especially if it’s the ultimate. So we get about a quarter milk plenty to hold the whole sauce together, alright and I’m going to take a couple of cloves of garlic—in paper and everything because I just want to infuse a flavor. We’re going to strain everything out. I’m just going to stir that in. And then we’re going to take some fresh thyme. I’m going to throw to the milk as well. To me, it’s really simple. They’re so rich flavor. Alright so we got some herbs and some garlic. Then we’re going to take a half of stick of butter. Alright, we’re going to throw it right into our big pot here. And I said before, it’s going to be the base for the roux. I’m talking about it’s flour and butter mixed together alright and it’s going to be the binder which is going to hold the sauce together. So, this infuses and starts to melt. We’re going to take our pot here. We’re going to make our roux, that’s a fancy word. I’m going to sprinkle some flour right on top about two tablespoons and at this place we’re kind of eyeball it so the roux has kind of a certain like consistency, it’s not too thick, it’s not too thin. I’m sure this whole thing together. I’m going to drop the temperature down. I don’t want any color on this. We’ll leave this as blonde as possible. Alright, just stir it in. It’s going to look like, what sound, it’s going to smell like popcorn. Classically, this is called a béchamel which is a—this is basically like a milk gravy. So, what we’re going to do first, we’re going to strain out our milk into our roux. Alright and because both are relatively hot, you just have to kind of do it in one big shot like this, okay. Put the whole thing in. Throw on your milk and thyme and garlic, it smells delicious. I’m going to start a little kind of—thing going on, it smells fantastic. I almost start this together and this is going to start to thicken as the roux as the flour and butter starts react with the temperature of the liquid. Now, this point if you see a couple of lumps in the bottom of this, don’t panic. I’m going to just grab a whisk, we’re just going to give it a little stir and all of like the lumps will start to break apart and the sauce will start to thicken itself. And it stays a couple of minutes. We’ll turn the temperature just a little bit, alright. Perfect. Alright so, take the cheese, fold this in, alright. In one, two, three shot, you’ve got a really beautiful cheese sauce, right? Now, in classic French kitchen this would be considered a mornay sauce at this point, right. Alright so, we stir these together until it starts to starts to thicken. Look at that. It just takes two seconds. You get this really beautiful sauce. Alright now, we’re going to do is we’ll take some salt, pepper, we’re going to season it up like that. Then wallah, you get the base for the ultimate macaroni cheese. Alright so we’ve got that, our elbow macaroni is simmering away within the corner. I’m going to take this. That’s really important if you do not want to overcook your pasta because this is going to bake off from the oven. Alright so just al dente because if not it’s really going to be a little mushy when it comes out. Okay. So, we got the macaroni here. Let’s get it fold into our beautiful cheese sauce so I’m going to get it0 stirred together. How firmly is this? Alright so this is great. I like a little bit of color—so I’m going to add some parsley, alright just a little bit of green stuff. Now, if your kids are opposing anything green, I get it, I understand. You don’t want to do this but I just think the flavor is really great. I’m just going to roll it up in tight little bundle. Just give it a quick little chop, one, two, three. That can get folded into the sauce itself. Alright and that’s it for the most part. It’s all about the great technique in the little simple sauce and you’ve got a fantastic macaroni cheese. Now, it’s a little loose right now but you want that because when the pasta cooks, it’s going to swell a little more—a little loose this point and too tight because then it will actually make a dry macaroni. Alright so, we got a baking dish, take this. It’s going to go into the baking dish one, two, three, just like that. Then, take the other half of the —white cheddar cheese and we’re going to bake this for about a half an hour until it gets really bubbly. There’s a nice golden crust on top of it. Almost the point we can crack across from the spoon, really great perfect macaroni cheese. Alright so we go into the oven, see you later alligator. We’ll garnish it up right with some great flavors so I’ve got a little bacon in here, bacon, some onions, a little bit of garlic, some thyme, I’m just going to scatter right on top. They’re beautiful, it’s great for a big meal. Pick your corner and then go in deep. Now, let’s take a look at this, that’s great. Well, that my friend is the ultimate macaroni and cheese.