I’m not sure I’m so much a fan of this. Maybe the recipe isn’t the best there is but it felt not that creamy and lacked acidity despite my attempts to adapt with some more apple cider vinegar.
I’m not sure I’m so much a fan of this. Maybe the recipe isn’t the best there is but it felt not that creamy and lacked acidity despite my attempts to adapt with some more apple cider vinegar.
What on gods green earth? Acidic Mac? Vinegar? Oh lort 😵💫
You better be rage baiting us, OP.
Have you not put just a slight amount of acidity into your mac and cheese? It’s not enough to give it a primary flavor or anything, but it cuts through the richness and gives it a touch of contrast.
A little mustard or a little hot sauce, a teaspoon for the entire pan. Doesn’t take much.
Mustard powder and cayenne 🤌
Serve your Mac and Cheese alongside a green leaf salad with a simple, home-made vinaigrette dressing. The vinaigrette will give you the acid you need without risking breaking your sauce.
Yeah, but never directly into it while baking. Usually as sides or as topings.
Soooo it’s really just greasy pasta with an over abundance of cheese in a béchamel sauce?
Its only greasy if your emulsion breaks, which adding lots of acid will do. There should be no grease, only smooth sauce. But yes, some foods are generally richer and heavy. Carbonara is even more rich and while some people might add a small squeeze of lemon juice it generally isnt made with acid- the black pepper is what contrasts with the richness
If you want more acid I’d recommend adding things on top: some hotsauce or acidic BBQ sauce, some pickled red onions and chorizo (the Mexican kind, no casing), pulled pork bbq with a NC vinegar bbq sauce (vinegar BBQ sauce is the regional variant where I’m from in north Carolina for pulled pork), carnitas, or pico de gallon, or serve with sides or an acidic beverage
But trying to put an acid like vinegar into the sauce directly will break your sauce and you’ll get a weird greasy texture, while also tasting wrong. If your cheese tastes too heavy try using sharp cheddar or another sharper more acidic cheese (here in the us cheddar would be the classic choice for Mac and cheese anyway, its flavor works well as the primary flavor in Mac and cheese), and some people use a little bit of dijon mustard because it can compliment the flavor of the cheese and has emulcifiers in it that can help stabilize your sauce. Don’t put a ton though, its not supposed to be an acidic food, just a little, like roughly a teaspoon for a large serving at max. You shouldn’t be able to distinctly taste any mustard, that would be weird
For anyone who finds the mustard weird take it up with Alton brown
If you have any questions on making Mac and cheese feel free to ask, I’m happy to help :) I used to regularly make it from scratch
Pico de gallon?
ROFL epic autocorrect fail.
I’m afraid of asking your recipe for carbonara if you compare it to baking your pasta in a comparable mass of cheese and cream
I don’t usually make baked Mac and cheese, I make stovetop with a mornay sauce, and the only comparison I’m making to carbonara is that its a dish that is intentionally rich and fatty from another cuisine op may be more familiar with or see as more tasteful than classic american food.
My carbonara is pasta, pasta water, salt, fresh black pepper, fatty pork, rendered pork fat, eggs (extra or only yolk), and parmesan.
No cream, I’m making carbonara, not Alfredo.
It was not greasy in the sense of separation of components / emulsion failing at all. Maybe I don’t have the correct wording for this. It had texture but lacked tasted maybe? Just too cheesy not in a good way? Maybe I should try balancing the plate with an acidic side as you recomment. On top of the 100000 tweaks I got on cheese & ratio from the 100 of offended passionate americans I hurt with this attempt xD
Ok this is a trustworthy source, got a favorite recipe you care to share? I haven’t considered adding mustard but it makes sense.
Sadly I don’t have a recipe, I would just wing it every time 😅 which probably wasnt smart cause I always struggled to make the right ratio of cheese sauce and noodles together
Usually when I’m learning how to make something I look up and read a bunch of seperate recipes and look for the common elements and variations, and then I decide how I wanna make mine, but I don’t remember any recipes I’ve used. If I were to go looking for one I’d probably see if chef john has one, as his recipes are usually fairly classic and to the point, which is usually what I want as a starting place for making something my own