Mac-n-Cheese, Cheese, and More Cheese (v3.0)

Mac-n-Cheese, Cheese, Cheese and Cheese

I think all cooks, from the diligent amateur to the dedicated professional, have at least a little bit of OCD in their bones. Consider the working cook: Why else would someone repeatedly construct the same thing, in precisely the same manner, under extreme and unrelenting pressure, with the specific aim, not only of doing it well, but of doing it the same way, every time that knife meets board or a pan clangs down on a flat-top? Not that that's a bad thing. To the contrary, that trendy new place you've been gagging to try, the innumerable souls saved by much-needed hangover brunches, and every great sushi bar all depend on it. Can you imagine playing Russian roulette with the crust at your favorite pizza joint, the temperature of your steak, or the hardness of your egg yolk? Take away the obsessive cooks, and we'd all be eating Swanson's Hungry Man or instant ramen with a plastic spork.

All of which is a roundabout way of rationalizing my third installment of Why I'm Trying To Make Perfect Mac-n-Cheese. My wife will testify to the mountains of grated cheese, the errors like some pagan fortune engraved in burnt milk at the bottom of a sauce pot, the sweet, nutty smell of flour frying in butter that filled the house as I worked my way through v1.0 (a white version, based on Italian cheeses), on into v2.0 (a cheddar-like orange version, with breadcrumb topping), and - finally - to where I am today, Mac-n-Cheese, Cheese, and More Cheese (v3.0), wherein I learned that, unlike Crisco or tickles, if some is good, then more is better.

I can't claim that my perfect mac-n-cheese will also be yours; we may, and likely do, have different ideas about the Platonic ideal of this American classic, as heterogeneous as it is ubiquitous. I can, however, state definitively that I'll not try to make a better one, because this bad boy - all gooey, creamy, sharp, melted, cheesy goodness, with layers of richly textured pasta, glowing with a natural orange that Kraft's chemical engineers would envy, and infused with a distinctly adult intensity and depth of flavor - is, as far as my palate is concerned, the shit. My kitchen, my blog, my palate - get on board, or get your own! Seriously, I think it's the benchmark that matters in a project such as this: You need to be able to see and taste clearly, to define without ambiguity or waffling, precisely what it is that you're trying to do. If your ideal is warm in the middle, or you're certain that chocolate pudding means milk chocolate, then I probably can't help you, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to perfect it anyway. You just need to accept that, like my ideal my mac-n-cheese, the elusive version behind the shadows on the cave of your palate remains intensely personal.

All that being said, if you love mac-n-cheese (and if you don't, well, you may want to get "help"), I can't recommend strongly enough that give this one a shot. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, particularly for so pedestrian a dish, and one for which a far more modest effort can still produce acceptable results. But this isn't about acceptable, it's about perfect, and that means there are a few more corners not to cut, longer blocks to traverse. (In truth, you could cook almost the same dish with a lot less hassle by skipping the onion brulee, the milk-poaching of the pasta, and the layering of the noodles. It will still kick ass, but inevitably you'll be left wondering whether merely near-perfection was worth the time saved. Still and all, better to skip those steps than never to have made this dish.)

Mac-n-Cheese, Cheese, and More Cheese (v3.0)

A typical Onion Brulee in pan

1. Bring a gallon of salted whole milk to a gentle simmer (don't scorch it - if you do, throw it out and start over, it will be irredeemable and will ruin the entire dish) in a pasta pot and prep a half a sweet (Vidalia, Maui, Walla Walla) onion and make an onion brulee: Stud the onion with a few cloves, put a single bay leaf in a knife-slit in the top, and grill it in a plan until the onion begins to soften and the underside turns a deep caramel color. Preheat a 350F oven.
2. Grate 1+1/3 pound of aged Mimolette and 1/3 pound each of cave-aged Gruyere, Appenzeller, and yellow American cheeses (grate the American if off a block, but slices are fine as-is) cheeses and, once the onion is done, add it to 6 cups of whole milk and warm it up (it doesn't need to boil but it does need to be hot, or the sauce will get lumpy). While the milk and onion are warming, cook 1/2 cup of flour into 3/4 cup of butter for a light blonde roux in a sauce pot.
3. Add two pounds (it might be 1kg, depending on the brand) of high quality boxed penne (preferably not regate), three whole, peeled cloves of garlic, and some white pepper corns to the pasta pot and poach the pasta until just shy of al dente: If it's a good Italian brand, you'll want to take it off about 1 minute before the lower end of their  suggested cooking range (it should be just barely too undercooked to eat, as this will allow it to finish cooking in the sauce). Stir the pasta from time to time to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other (the milk makes this a little trickier than normal).
4. While the pasta is cooking, make the cheese sauce; Whisk the hot, onion-infused milk into the roux, in order to make a thick bechamel. If it lumps a little, don't stress, we'll strain it out later. Bring up to a gentle boil, back off the heat, and season with salt, white pepper, and nutmeg (something like a and 1/8 teaspoon each nutmeg and pepper, bu you'll need to adjust to taste - it should be neither salty nor peppery nor bland, with just the slightest background note of baking spice from the nutmeg). Whisk in 1 teaspoon each of mustard powder and sweet (not hot) paprika (the paprika should have a rich, dark red color; if it looks dark brown and dirty, it's either too old or of poor quality). Grind a small pinch of saffron threads between your fingers and stir in. In addition to flavor, the mustard-paprika-saffron seasoning is the secret to a great color. Finally, once the base for the sauce has been finished, stir in 1lb of the Mimollette and all of the Gruyere, Appenzeller, and American cheeses, working in large handfuls. When the sauce is uniformly blended and smooth, check the seasoning, and turn off the heat. If it has any lumps, or hard ends of cheese, or anything else that is not uniformly smooth, run it through a chinois or fine-mesh strainer.
5. Either during or after making the sauce, drain the pasta when finished, making sure to remove the garlic cloves and peppercorns. Shake the noodles gently so that they don't clump together. 
6. In order to assemble the casserole, lightly butter a 9x13 baking dish, and alternate single layers of pasta and sauce, and beginning and ending with a layer of sauce. When laying down the pasta, line up the little pencils end to end in neat, parallel rows, alternating direction by 90 degrees - check out the picture. (Yes, it's a pain, but it looks really cool and, more importantly, allows the final product to set up and to be cut in neat shapes for service.) After the last row of pasta, add an extra thick layer of sauce, and then top it with the final 1/3lb of the grated Mimolette. (Note, based on your exact baking dish, pasta quantity, evaporation while cooking, and personal touch, you may or may not use all of the pasta, sauce or both - it's not a big deal, just make sure that each layer of pasta is covered and that you begin and end with sauce, the rest will take care of itself.)
7. Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until bubbling up the sides. Remove, let rest for 10 minutes, return to the oven and broil the top until golden brown and bubbly - this will ensure that you can serve neat, "set" pieces, that they food is piping hot, and a cheesy crust on top, all important features, as long as we're going for "perfect".

Layering pasta and cheese in rows