I continue to try and find a new or better mac and cheese recipe. Sadly to say the recipe I tried last night from William Somoma with Gouda, Sharp Cheddar and a T. tomato paste wasn't as good as the one I perfected as my creation of Flemings Mac and Cheese. I called it Smoky Mac and Cheese. What I did learn was that baking it 40 minutes can turn a soupy mac and cheese into a dry mac and cheese so don't bake it so long at 375F. When it was soupy I could taste the tomato paste which I didn't care for but it did give it more of an orange color. After it baked the tomato paste went away. Next time I'll only bake it for 30 minutes. I want it to be creamy and a bit wet just not soupy. The cheese combination was good. I also learned that cooked and crumbled bacon on top of the mac and cheese was nice because the bacon stays crisp. I added the cooked bacon on top during the last 5 minutes of baking. Adding it on top however doesn't give the mac and cheese the smoky flavor like I like but that may also come from the smoky cheddar I use in my best version. I'll keep adding it to the mac and cheese but I'll also add a few crumbled pieces on top. Something else I tried from Kelsey's Essentials recipe was mixing the panko with some bacon grease. I liked this idea but the recipe called for way too much bread crumbs so it was a bit dry and crumbly. I'll reduce it to 3/4 of a cup of Panko to 2-3 T. of bacon grease.
Last time I was at Flemings I got some tips from the waitress on how they do it. I was pretty close but I did learn something new about their topping of cooking some chipolte pepper in some oil till it smokes and then adding this mixture to the panko bread crumbs. I'll try that next time.
Macaroni and Cheese is the best and once you make it from scratch you can never go back to the boxed version because it just isn't the same even if you liked it before. It is so much better from scratch and it is very easy so don't be intimidated. A powdered cheese processed product just can't compete.
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