Servings
Ingredients
- 1 stick unsalted butter salted if you got nothing else
- .75 pound pasta shells or .5lb elbow macaroni
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3 cups whole milk
- salt and pepper
- 2.5 cups grated cheese cheddar, whatever
- spice mix of some kind, see description or season salt
- .5 cup bread crumbs or crumbled up Ritz or saltine or whatever crackers, or put a piece of bread in the oven for 15 minutes and crumble that up. It's really up to you.
Directions
This recipe is a base to which you can add whatever the hell you want. It makes a shitload of delicious mac and cheese, and will feed half a dozen dudes. The real key to this is it can be done anywhere from big pimping to medium, or even small, pimping-wise. For instance I like to use three or four cheeses, make my own spice mix from scratch, and throw in some prosciutto. But you can just as easily make it out of a block of shitty government cheese and some butter. It’s that versatile. Today I made one kind of in the middle, because I forgot to get some shit. But you know what? It turned out fucking delicious.
If you do all these steps in the order below everything should work out just right. If it didn’t you probably fucked something up and I take no responsibility for it.
Get your biggest pot and fill it about halfway with water. Add a teaspoon or so of salt. Boil that shit. When it’s at a “rolling boil”, or rocking big bubbles, drop in your pasta. I made mine today with about 3/4 of a pound of shells, but you can use elbow macaroni too, classic style. Use a little less macaroni, not much more than a half pound. You should only cook it for about ten minutes. The precise time for al dente is usually on the box of pasta, or alternatively GFE.
Turn on your oven, preheat to 350dF.
Grate your cheese. You can use all one kind, or mix up cheeses you like. I used a nice cheddar for 80% of the mix and a pre-shredded “italian mix” in a bag for the last 20%. It tasted great. You can use whatever cheese you like. Some may melt weird or burn or not melt right but whatever. All cheddar is a good baseline. Measure out your milk and flour. Put the milk in something easy to pour, a pitcher or large measuring cup works good. I had prosciutto, and if you have something like that chop it up now. I went for strips about .25″ x 1″.
Take your stick of butter and rub down a large baking dish. Something to about 16″ x 10″ should be good. Your pasta should be done cooking…pour it out into a colander, shake it off, rinse it down with cold water, and set it to the side for now. Remember you don’t want it fully cooked and mushy.
Now this is an interesting step. You’re going to make a sauce base called a roux. 
I know it sounds faggy and French, but remember, French people know how to eat good, so maybe rethink that stereotype, you prick. Here’s the thing: get your big sauce pan (at least three quarts), or even the pot you did the pasta in. Ed Note: I fucked up and used a smaller sauce pan than I should have and thought, “fuck it” so I threw everything into my pot and finished there. Worked out great. Anyway, you want to heat that pan/pot up on medium heat, and drop the rest of your butter in. Let it melt, move it around, don’t let it brown. This is a light roux, so you don’t want it browned. More Kristina Hendricks, less Jersey Shore. Much, much, much, less Jersey Shore.
Now take that flour, and start mixing it in to your butter. Keep stirring and don’t let it brown, again. Once you get it all incorporated, stirring all the while, cook it about 4 or 5 more minutes. Did I mention you shouldn’t let it brown? If it starts sizzling take it off the heat, let it cool off and turn down your burner.
OK, this shit sounds complicated, but once you do it it’s easy. Take your milk you measured out earlier. Pour it slowly into your flour/butter mixture, stirring or whisking the whole time. It will seem lumpy at first but it smooths out nice. Keep stirring. I cannot stress that enough, you gotta stir like a mofo. Not heavy duty scrapey stirs, but nice no-one-is-home-and-we-just-got-cable-internet wrist flicks. Something like you’re got the whole weekend and you wanna avoid chapping.
Once it’s good and smooth you’re basically home free. Take it off the heat, add your cheese and stir it a little until it melts in there. Add your pasta and a a few big twists of pepper and a pinch of salt. Add whatever else you’re throwing in there, I added prosciutto. Stir everything in. Pour it in the baking dish, shake it a bit to even it out.
Now, you can put a topping on your mac and cheese here. I like to make something different every time. You can do none, or just toss a half cup of extra grated cheese over everything. Today I realized I forgot bread crumbs, which I hate paying money for, and I didn’t want to fuck around making any, so I took a few crackers I had and crushed them up good. Then I realized I hadn’t bought any spices either, so I thought “WHATEVER I AM FORGETFUL” and grabbed the random container of Paul Prudhomme Seasoned Salt I had in the spice cabinet. I mixed two big pinches of pepper, a big pinch of salt, about three teaspoons of Prudhomme, and a half tablespoon of those strips of prosciutto I mentioned earlier, with a little less than a quarter cup of the grated cheese I’d separated out earlier. I finger-mixed it all together and sprinkled it over the top of the mac and cheese in the baking dish. There’s really nothing you can’t do here…a couple strips of bacon microwave-cooked and crushed up on top, Ritz crackers, nothing, whatever sounds good. Experiment. Taste that shit first tho.
So once it’s topped, throw it in the oven for 24-30 minutes, or until it’s browned and bubbly on top. Take it out and let it sit for a few and then go to town. I love having bread with every meal so I do. I am also fat. So take that as you will. Desi had hers with Tapatio hot sauce. That sounds awesome, I’ll do that with leftovers.
