"Gourmet" Mac & Cheese

Ever since I've tried the "gourmet" version of mac & cheese at a restaurant, I've been trying to replicate it at home. I first looked at Epicurious, which always has some nice gourmet recipes, but most of the recipes were a bit too far off from the original, and none had the wonderful breadcrumb topping that I enjoyed so much at the restaurant version. I then turned to Cook's Illustrated, which always has great versions of classic recipes (If you can believe it, I actually pay to subscribe to their website, but it's been so worth it to have access to virtually all of their cookbooks online).

In any case, their recipe looked really good, I like how most of the cooking is done on the stovetop, and the technique of starting out with a béchamel sauce seemed pretty solid. However, it didn't really have the gourmet feel I was after. I then decided to put my own spin on the Cook's Illustrated recipe to make it more "upscale". The recipe uses 1/2 cheddar and 1/2 jack for the cheese, I replaced it with 3/4 Gruyère and 1/4 Parmigiano-Reggiano. I figure the Gruyère , which is also a good melting cheese, has a stronger, nuttier flavor than cheddar or jack, and the Parmigiano-Reggiano will give it an additional kick. For the upscale factor, I decided to make truffled mac & cheese. I've had versions that used white truffle oil that tasted great, but I wanted to give this recipe a little extra "oomph" so I decided to use some of my jarred black truffles from A.G. Ferrari. These things are great since they are preserved in olive oil, so I can get the flavor of fresh truffle without having to buy and use a whole one. I still wound up adding the truffle oil anyway for extra truffle flavor (IMO, you can never have enough truffle). Instead of macaroni, I usually use penne or some other tube pasta...one of my favorites is this tri-color pasta I get at World Market which has some other subtle flavors built into the pasta (such as basil and squid ink). I also toyed with the idea of adding some pancetta to give it some bacon-y flavor. However, I figure I didn't want any other flavors overpowering the truffle so I went with the plain ziti pasta and left out the meat...it was definitely worth it as this wound up having tons of truffle taste in every bite!


Mmmmm, mac & cheesy...

I would have been totally satisfied with just the mac & cheese with the truffle, but of course Uly just gotta have some meat, so we kept it really simple and just grilled some steak. Since I was going by Milk Pail anyway for the cheeses (*so* much cheaper than Whole Foods), I decided to pick up some dry-aged ribeye at Dittmers. Uly and I have really been getting into dry-aged meats lately, and it's totally worth the price for the extra beefy flavor. We didn't do anything to the steak but put in a little salt and pepper and throw it on the grill, and it came out great. It went perfectly with the mac & cheese (to me, the steak *was* the side dish)! For our two other sides, we just went with some sauteed mushrooms (deglazed with port) and some green/yellow beans from Trader Joe's (the microwave-in-the-bag kind). At least the other 2 sides were pretty easy to prepare so most of my effort went into the mac & cheese


Dry-aged ribeye steak and port-sauteed mushrooms


Final plating - Mac & cheese, grilled ribeye, sauteed mushrooms, green & yellow beans

For the wine, we decided to break out the good stuff. I gave Uly a half-bottle of Stag's Leap Wine Cellar's Cask23 a while back, and we've been dying to open it. Figure with the aged steak and the truffle it was worth opening this special bottle. It was a pretty young wine (2005) but it was super-smooth. However, it still had some nice velvety tannins and very concentrated fruit flavor. You can definitely tell this was a special bottle. I think it's still a toss-up for me which is the best Cab I've ever had, the Stag's Leap Cask23 or Ridge Monte Bello...maybe I'll have to do a side-by-side tasting to be sure. Since we're total alkies, a half-bottle just isn't enough for a meal, so we also opened up a bottle of Ridge Geyserville 2007. I have to say, the Ridge wines are usually super-smooth to me, but my first sip of it was a bit acidic and lacking in finesse after the Cask23. As we got used to it though, it got much better...probably since the wine opened up a bit. I guess we're probably a bit spoiled when we're drinking Ridge as our "second" wine.


Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cask 23 Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Ridge Vineyards Geyserville 2007

But of course, a meal in the Murillo household is not complete without some cheese. You would think I would be all cheese-d out after the mac & cheese but then this is me we are talking about here. I had purchased some farmhouse cheddar at Milk Pail a couple weeks ago and was eager to finally try it out. I have had a similar-looking English Cheddar before (with the black wax and everything) and thought it would be crumbly, nutty, and extremely sharp as the other cheddar that I loved. Unfortunately it was more on the bland and creamy side so it was a bit disappointing. Oh well, at least it was still good, and I got it on special so I paid less than half of what I did for the other cheese. For our soft cheese, I decided to get some Explorateur. When I feel like a triple-creme I usually get Brillat-Savarin (my all time favorite cheese), and we just got a whole pound of Delice De Bourgogne from Costco last month, so I figure we should mix it up. The Explorateur was not as good as these two (not quite as creamy as the Brillat and not as tangy as the Delice), but it was pretty decent, and definitely still way better by far than St. Andre and Pierre Robert. The big surprise of this cheese plate was actually the Danish Castello blue cheese. It was nice and creamy, and pretty mild for a blue cheese, just the way I like it. I was never much for super-strong blue cheeses like Stilton and Roquefort, so this was just right. It still needed some honey to help it out, but it's now been added to my go-to list of blue cheeses (along with Fourme d'Ambert and Roaring '40s).


Clockwise from top left: Ford Farmhouse cheddar, Explorateur, Castello

Speaking of honey, just had to include this very nice artsy shot that Uly took of me trying to get the last of the honey from the jar to our honey pot. Nice shot, babe! (or should I say honey?) ;-)


Anyway, that was our mac & cheese night. Hope you enjoyed this post! Here's the recipe I use in case any of you want to give it a try:


"Gourmet" Macaroni and Cheese
(Adapted from Cook's Illustrated's Classic Macaroni and Cheese, with slight modifications )

Serves 6 to 8, or 10 to 12 as a side.

It's crucial to cook the pasta until tender--just past the "al dente" stage. In fact, overcooking is better than undercooking the pasta. The recipe can be halved and baked in an 8-inch-square, broilersafe baking dish. If desired, offer celery salt or hot sauce (such as Tabasco) for sprinkling at the table.

Ingredients

Bread Crumb Topping
6-8 oz baguette
3 tablespoons unsalted butter (cold), cut into 6 pieces

Pasta and Cheese
1 pound elbow macaroni, penne, or other tube pasta
1 tablespoon table salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups whole milk
12 ounces Gruyere, shredded (3 cups)
4 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano, shredded (1 cup)
1 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tbsp (or to taste) white truffle oil (optional, use preserved or fresh black truffle for a true splurge)
4oz prosciutto or pancetta, chopped and sauteed separately to crisp (optional)*

Instructions

1. For the bread crumbs: Pulse bread and butter in food processor until crumbs are no larger than 1/8 inch, ten to fifteen 1-second pulses. Set aside.
2. For the pasta and cheese: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat broiler. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in Dutch oven over high heat. Add macaroni and 1 tablespoon salt; cook until pasta is tender. Drain pasta and set aside in colander.
3. In now-empty Dutch oven, heat butter over medium-high heat until foaming. Add flour, mustard, and cayenne (if using) and whisk well to combine. Continue whisking until mixture becomes fragrant and deepens in color, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk; bring mixture to boil, whisking constantly (mixture must reach full boil to fully thicken). Reduce heat to medium and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened to consistency of heavy cream, about 5 minutes. Off heat, whisk in cheeses and 1 teaspoon salt until cheeses are fully melted. Add pasta and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is steaming and heated through, about 6 minutes. Mix in truffle oil/truffles (if using).
4. Transfer mixture to broiler-safe 9-by 13-inch baking dish and sprinkle evenly with bread crumbs. Sprinkle prosciutto/pancetta on top (if using). Broil until crumbs are deep golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes, rotating pan if necessary for even browning. Cool about 5 minutes, then serve.

* If using real truffle, you may want skip the pancetta/prociutto, to get the maximum impact from the truffle.

Duck night

Duck breast with cherry-port sauce, glazed carrots, and duck-fat potatoes

The first time we cooked duck breast, we did it sous-vide style after being inspired by watching Hung on Top Chef. The recipe we used (from another Blogger!) produced the most tender, perfectly cooked duck I've ever had. The flavors are loosely based on duck a l'orange, but the highlight is the sous-vide method of cooking. However, as much as I loved the texture of the duck, I'm not that crazy about orange flavors in general, and prefer a sweeter, berry-based sauce that I've had at some restaurants. A quick search on Epicurious later, and I have found this recipe for Duck Breast with Cherries and Port Sauce.

Initially, I wanted to do sous-vide and just do the sauce from the recipe, however since Uly had to work a bit on Saturday, figure it'll be easier to just pan-sear it as instructed by this new recipe. Whenever we cook, Uly is usually the one who cooks the main protein, while I do sauces, sides, dessert, etc. so I was kinda scared of messing up the duck. So I just did all the prep and waited for him to get home before doing the main portion of the cooking. I gotta admit though, I definitely missed Uly when I was chopping up the shallots, since I suck at chopping onions and start crying every 10 seconds...Uly has mad knife skills and can chop onions like no other!

While waiting for Uly, I also started working on the sides. I figure some potatoes as our starch and some baby carrots for our vegetable. My initial plan was to just throw everything in a roasting pan with some olive oil and/or duck fat, but then got inspired earlier in the day while watching Avec Eric on PBS. I was a bit skeptical about putting cumin and cayenne on the carrots, afraid that they would be totally overpowered by the spices, but alas, I am just too weak to resist this silver fox (you should have seen me drooling like a fangirl at Le Bernardin). Mesmerized by his French accent, I decided to follow his recipe for glazed carrots, which he also paired with duck, but I stuck to my guns for the sauce. It actually wound up going perfectly with the Epicurious duck recipe, since the mildly spiced carrots were a good contrast to the sweet sauce, and the cumin did not overwhelm as I had initially feared. Merci Eric!

I figure I'll continue the duck theme with the potatoes and use this recipe for potatoes roasted in duck fat. I've made it before for a dinner party and I liked it a lot then...Uly thinks it's too rich though and tastes more like fried potatoes than roasted potatoes. I guess with the sweeter, richer sauce, I can see why the duck fat would be a little overboard. Maybe next time, I'll try something lighter and maybe more savory/herb-y for more contrast with the sweet sauce. Or maybe some truffles. :)

Since this was another duck-themed dinner, we had some (duck) foie gras for our first course. We usually like to buy a whole lobe of foie gras and then slice it up, vacuum-seal it, and freeze it, so we had some handy. However, I saw that the baggie was labeled April 2008! I figured it can't hurt to give it a try, we could always dump it if it was bad (though it would have broken my heart to throw out some foie). Good thing it was still good, and you couldn't tell it's been in our freezer for a year in a half! Gotta love that vacuum sealer! We even used the same cherry-port sauce for our duck breast and it also went perfectly with the foie gras.

For our wine, we started out with the 2006 Goldeneye Pinot Noir from Duckhorn (you see we definitely went overboard with the duck theme here). It was definitely very impressive, and I think I found one of my new favorites! I know people are supposed to like Pinot for their subtlety, but I really liked the more powerful style of this one. We followed up with a 2005 Warm Lake Estate Pinot (Niagara) that we got from our trip to New York. This one was lighter and more subtle, but I guess I just like bigger, more fruit-forward wines so this was a bit anticlimactic after the GoldenEye.

But of course, I can't have a fancy meal without some cheese. We still had some leftover Stilton, and Manchego from our Spanish party, so I picked up some soft cheese at Milk Pail. I had high hopes for the Rouzaire Brie with Truffles, expecting it to taste somewhat like Brillat-Savarin with truffles but it wasn't even close. I was pretty disappointed with the lack of truffle-y taste and the brie itself was just kinda blah in general. I guess I won't be buying that one again.

I probably blew out all my points for the week in this one meal, but it was definitely worth it. I still have the other duck breast in my freezer though keep posted for that meal!

Here are some more pics below of our duck dinner:


Place setting


Searing the duck breast


Foie gras with cherry-port sauce


The duck


Duck-fat roasted potatoes


Glazed carrots


Goldeneye Pinot Noir 2006


Cheeses (clockwise from left: Manchego, Stilton, Rouzaire Brie w/ truffles)

Lechon

Homer: Are you saying you’re never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

- The Simpsons

Nothing makes a Filipino feast more festive than lechon! Uly was craving some, and since we were having our families over for his birthday, it seemed like a good excuse to get one. Technically we only got half, but we didn't think we could finish a whole pig, even with both our families in attendance. We wound up still having more than enough leftovers for everyone to make paksiw, a dish using leftover lechon meat and sauce. I gotta say, I'm glad we wound up getting the "butt" half...seems like it has way more meat and tasty crispy skin than the "head" part.

We ordered the lechon at this place called Nayong Filipino, just a few minutes away...one of the benefits of living in Union City I guess. We normally go to Lechon Manila for lechon by the pound, but since it closed we were glad to find this place, which only lets you order either a half or full lechon.


Nice piggy...

But of course, it's not a real Filipino party unless there's a sh*tload of food. Uly and I made some grilled bangus (milkfish) as the "lite" option of the day. My mom made her famous lumpia, and Leah made some yummy caldereta (Filipino beef stew). For dessert, Uly's mom brought some crema de fruta cake and bibinka.

Needless to say, the party ended with most everyone in a massive food coma. Gotta love filipino parties!


More messy than our usual spread...but still good eatin'!

Crêpes

Crepe filling ingredients

Since we got our new crepe pan, Uly and I have been determined to learn to make our own crêpes. The first time we made it, I used this recipe from Epicurious, which worked really well for the sweet crêpes, but was too sweet for the savory crêpe.

This time, I switched to Alton Brown's recipe, which gives variations for both sweet and savory crêpes. It was ok but I think the first recipe was better, especially for the sweet crêpes. I gotta admit...I messed up majorly and forgot to add the melted butter, but the batter still seemed too thick in general. Next time, I think I'll try the recipe from Cook's Illustrated, which has more liquid than Alton Brown's recipe, but a bit less than the Epicurious recipe. I guess Uly and I have a long way to go before we become crêpe experts.

We made 3 kinds of savory crêpes:


Ham, egg & cheese - This is a classic French savory crêpe. I like it better than just the ham/cheese I made the first time, the egg definitely makes it more savory. I put more cheese than last time which made it better, but I think I still prefer the sharper taste of Gruyèreto the Emmentaler cheese we used today. This was probably the best savory crêpe of today's bunch though.





Spinach & mushroom - I've had some version of this at crêperies. I added some white truffle oil to the sauteed mushrooms, but didn't really taste it, I think my truffle oil is too old and lost most of its truffle aroma. I really like the flavor we got from drizzling the basil oil on top, I think next time I'll add some basil and make a light pesto. It was really good, but one thing that was sorely missing is some MEAT! I think I"ll add some chicken next time.





Bacon, egg & cheese - I usually love everything with bacon, but the biggest surprise of all was that the bacon crêpe didn't taste as god as the ham crêpe. It was still good, but I never thought that ham (or any other food) could ever beat out bacon in anything...there's a first for everything I guess.




Since the peach season is almost over, we also decided to take advantage of remaining fresh peaches around and make Bellinis! I just pureed some white peaches (gotta love my immersion blender) and added some prosecco. We got a great deal on Nino Franco "Rustico" Prosecco at World Market, it's usually a $15 or so bottle but they had a 50% off sale. I gotta say this prosecco is definitely a cut above some cheaper brands that I've bought. The drink turned out well, but I think I put too much puree so it turned out a tad too pulpy. Surprisingly, I think the frozen purees from Whole foods work out better, I think it's because the texture is a bit finer than my own homemade puree. I'm still aspiring to make it as good as they do in Bouchon Las Vegas, they still have the best Bellini I've tried. This is still much better than a Mimosa though!




After we finished the savory crêpes, went back to cooking our sweet dessert crêpes, since we didn't want the crêpes to sit for too long. We had 2 different crêpes, mainly because I don't eat fruit, and Uly doesn't eat chocolate:



Strawberry & banana - This was Uly's dessert crêpe. He put a little too much batter this time so it didn't turn out as thin and crisp as the others. It was better the last time he made it (probably because of the better crepe recipe) but it wasn't bad. Because of this, it turned out a little messy...definitely not one of our picture-perfect dishes.






Nutella - I don't really like fruit (unless it's part of an alcoholic beverage, so I decided I'll do another classic, the Nutella crêpe. Good thing we have plenty of this stuff in the lab so I borrowed some to use this weekend. It was really easy and worked out really well...I definitely need to get my own jar of this stuff...it's awesome!




Well, that was our crêpe adventure of the day...I think we probably need several more tries before we can perfect our technique and recipe enough that we can serve this to other people for brunch. I think we're getting there...

Guacamole

Uly and I were watching cooking shows on PBS yesterday morning, when Rick Bayless' show "One Plate at at Time" came on. Though I was rooting for Hubert Keller on Top Chef masters, Rick Bayless made me a fan with his creative and tasty-looking ingredients. The episode was centered on guacamole, and they showed several different kinds which made me totally crave some.

For my usual recipe, I just take some avocado, onions, cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno and/or serrano, and some chipotle powder. I usually make it really chunky and super-spicy, but I've been staying away from too spicy nowadays so I figure I'd make Rick Bayless' version. He has a bunch of different recipes, but I finally settled on this one, which looked like the simplest. One of the biggest differences from my usual recipe is he added tomatoes...I was iffy about it first, but I think it actually turned out really well. He also rinses white onions in water to help get rid of the bite. I gotta say though, I think I kind of prefer the bite of unrinsed yellow onions, and red onions are even better.

One of the reasons I decided to try out Rick Bayless' recipe is that I actually bought some Frontera-branded tortilla chips a while back at World Market. They were made with organic blue corn, and wound up being really good, tasted very rustic, definitely different from your usual tortilla chips.

I guess the takeaway from the show though, is that there's really no right or wrong way to make guacamole, just do whatever works for you. I do think I like his proportion of the avocado vs. other fixings, but I think next time that I make it I'll use red onions and add some chipotle powder since I like the smoky flavor it gives the guac.

Spanish Dinner Party

Since the last few dinner parties we've thrown were with my friends, figured it was time to invite Uly's buddies for a change. Uly and I have been really into tapas recently, so we decided to go with a Spanish theme for our dinner last week.

We started off with some cold tapas so people have something to munch on while we finished up the paella and the hot tapas. I just had to have some Jamon Serrano, so we served that over Pan con Tomate (tomato bread), the same way I've had it at some other tapas restaurants. Too bad the Jamon Iberico was just way too expensive, but the Serrano ham was still yummy. We also had a Manchego-Apple salad, which is pretty much just cubed Manchego cheese and apples, chopped walnuts, drizzled with Spanish olive oil and sherry vinegar. The original recipe called for Murcia Al Vino (Drunken Goat) but Uly doesn't really like goat cheese and I like Manchego better anyway. Finally, we had an assortment of chorizo to round up the cold appetizers. To drink, we had 2 kinds of sangria, one with red wine and one with white wine, since it was pretty warm still so it was nice to have a cold drink. Too bad I didn't get any good pictures of these since I had Uly's camera set up wrong (that's the last time I mess around w/ his SLR). Maybe next time I'll just make him take the pics or just use my point-n-shoot.


We then served the hot tapas together with the main course. Uly and I did all the prep earlier, and split up the hot tapas so it only took us around 5-10 minutes to get all of them done. Uly made 2 kinds of shrimp, Gambas a la Lima (shrimp with lime), and Gambas al Ajillo (shrimp with garlic...it also had some chili in it). I prepared the Champiñones al Ajillo (garlic mushrooms) and Sharleen's favorite, Pimientos de Padrón (Padron Peppers). They were kind of pricey but taste so good and are so worth it...too bad the season is pretty much ending. They call it the "Russian Roulette" of peppers since most are not spicy, but occasionally you get a really hot one...pretty fun to try to guess which ones they are!

For the main course, we had Paella (but of course). Uly and I made it once before so at least we had practice. This was our first time using a real paella pan though and I was glad it went well. We use the recipe from "The Best Recipe" cookbook from Cook's Illustrated and it was really good, though I would like to try some other recipes sometime. I thought we did a pretty good job timing everything. I was about halfway done w/ the paella when the guests arrived, and it was done by the time we were ready to sit down on the table. We just let it rest while we did the hot tapas, then we were all able to sit down and eat everything together. With the hot food, we drank a bottle of Spanish wine that Dave and Sharleen brought, and also opened another Spanish bottle we had in our cellar.

For dessert, we had flan and some Spanish cheeses. Initially, Uly just wanted the flan only, but I just couldn't resist getting some cheese when I was at Milk Pail the day before. At least it gave the guests a choice if they didn't feel like eating something sweet. I used a pretty standard flan recipe, and decided to make one giant flan instead of individual ones to be eaten family-style. For the cheese platter, we had more Manchego (we bought a giant piece of it at Costco) and Mahon, and served it with some Marcona almonds and membrllo. Had these with some port and the rest of the red wine.



I gotta say, this dinner was not as formal as my last couple dinner parties, but Uly wanted something casual for his buddies, and you can't really go too formal with a Spanish/tapas theme anyway. It's good to mix it up though, and I'm glad we get to try to prepare different kinds of dinners. Good times!



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