Friday, 5 September 2008
American Cooking in France: Macaroni and Cheese
This is easy to make. It's silly, but for the longest time I lamented not having Kraft macaroni and cheese in France, when in fact it's very easy to just make it yourself. A little more time consuming, granted, but if you make extra and freeze some you can make it go a long way.
The only tricky part, being in France, is what kind of cheese to use. We have hundreds of kinds of cheese in the supermarket but no cheddar and no "American" (let alone Velveeta!), so I had to come up with an appropriate substitute. (For those in the US, I used the Baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe from Good Eats as the basis for my experimentations.) Luckily I got it right on the first try, and the result looks and tastes just like Macaroni and cheese is supposed to look!
Ingredients:
- 500g elbow pasta or similar
- Half a bottle of milk
- 50g-75g margarine
- 200-300g of mimolette
- Optionally, a little comté
Preparation:
Cook pasta according to package instructions. Grate the cheese (mimolette is fine, but if you would've used sharp cheddar you might add in a little comté. Heat the milk and margarine, and stir in the grated cheese until it melts.
Put the pasta in an oven dish (or two), and pour the cheese mixture on top. Stir a bit, then top with a little more grated cheese. Put in a preheated oven at 175° C for 30 min., and voilà! Makes great leftovers and can be frozen.
