VIDEO

Making the perfect Mac and Cheese

Cool Hand Luke ate 50 eggs. So what.

I've eaten more than 500 pounds of macaroni and cheese.

Don't believe me? Considering that I ate at least a pound of mac and cheese a week from freshman year of college right through my mid 20s (four boxes for $1 was a savior), I see no reason for you to challenge my feat of culinary and cardiological bravura.

Assess your lifetime of eating and you'll see that you've probably packed away a few hundred pounds of the gooey, crunchy, soothing classic. Macaroni and cheese is a staple in the diets of everyone from toddlers to cholesterol-watching adults.

"We get everyone from 1-year-olds to over 100. Little kids come in with their great grandparents," says Sarita Ekya, owner of the New York restaurant S'Mac, a restaurant that serves just one item: macaroni and cheese.

"It's a nostalgic food."

You probably have Kraft to thank for elevating mac and cheese to nostalgia-food status. What started as a popular dish down South in the early 1800s became a national staple after Kraft Food Inc. introduced its "Kraft Dinner" in 1937. Kraft sold eight million boxes in the first year, and the dinner became a huge seller during World War II because of rationing. The rest is gastronomical history.

And while I've eaten many a crateful of the instant kind, it's really unacceptable to call yourself a mac and cheese fan unless you can make it yourself. On my wife Izablea's orders, the boxes are banned in our house, and I don't miss it one bit. Homemade is just so much better. It should be an essential component of even the worst cook's repertoire.

Macaroni and cheese can be made in several basic ways: with a rich, creamy sauce; layered and covered in an egg-milk mixture that becomes a custard when baked; or with evaporated milk and cooked on top of the stove. Cook's Illustrated rated the stovetop version as the best macaroni and cheese they tested for the January-February 1997 issue of the magazine.

I prefer the rich and creamy classic.

Another great thing about macaroni and cheese is its versatility. Try it with the ever popular bacon and caramelized onions. How about tomatoes, garlic pimentos or truffles? You name it. S'Mac has 10 variations on its menu, including Cajun and brie, which has roasted figs and shiitake mushrooms in it.

You also don't have to stick to cheddar cheese. Try parmesan, gouda, Roquefort, gruyere, cream cheese. Anything that melts. I don't recommend American cheese though. It has very little flavor.

Call me boring but I, again, prefer the classic. A mixture of cheddar cheeses works for me every time.

Over the years we've tried many different variations, and in the end I like the recipes that use a béchamel sauce -- or white sauce -- as the dish's base. Béchamel is one of the mother sauces that form the foundation of all French sauces. It is comprised of milk, butter and flour.

Once you add the spices and cheese into the béchamel, the mixture doesn't look much different from Kraft's mysterious orange powder after adding milk. Your béchamel, however, should not have that otherworldly color the store-bought kind has.

Ekya says it is essential to make your mac and cheese with a béchamel because the cheesy sauce helps spread the cheese throughout. If you're just dumping in a bunch of cheese, you'll get gross globs, which get more unsightly upon reheating (this dish is acceptable for leftovers).

After all the macaroni and cheese Izabela and I have made in the past week I think I'm going to have to work as hard as Luke and his buddies on the chain gang do to remain healthy. What's a little hard labor for nostalgia's sake?

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IZABELA'S MAC AND CHEESE

1 lb elbow macaroni, cooked according to box instructions

4 tablespoons butter, plus additional butter for greasing pan

4 tablespoons flour

4 cups milk

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

big pinch of smoked paprika, or hot Hungarian paprika or cayenne pepper

5 squirts Worcestershire sauce

1 1/4 lbs sharp or mild cheddar cheese, white or yellow, grated -- approximately 6 cups, reserve 1 cup

Optional:

1/3 cup plain bread crumbs

4 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Butter a 10 inch-square (or similarly sized) ceramic baking dish.

Cook the pasta according to box instructions in boiling water.

For the béchamel:

In medium sauce pan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. When the frothing has subsided, add the flour. Quickly and thoroughly incorporate the flour into the butter, stirring with a wooden spoon. You will have a dry, beige paste. Stir constantly while cooking for 2-3 minutes. The idea is to cook the flour in the butter.

Slowly whisk in some of the milk, while stirring. Work out the lumps with a whisk. Continue to add milk and stir until all the milk has been added. Raise the heat to medium and cook the sauce until it thickens to the consistency of batter and coats the back of the spoon. This will take 15-20 minutes. Use a wooden spoon to stir; it's easier than a whisk. Stir constantly and slowly. If the bottom starts to burn, don't scrap up. Pour off the sauce into a clean pan and continue cooking.

Toward the end when the sauce is thickened, mix in the salt, pepper, paprika and Worcestershire sauce. Stir in handfuls of the cheese and whisk until completely melted. Incorporate all 5 cups of the cheese. Remove from heat. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning including Worcestershire, salt, pepper and paprika according to preference. There should be a discernible tang and saltiness cutting through the fat of the cheese.

Mix the sauce into the pasta completely. Transfer to the greased baking pan. Sprinkle the reserved 1 cup cheese over the top.

(Optional) In small sauce pan melt the butter. Add bread crumbs and mix. Keep stirring until crumbs turn golden brown. About 5 minutes. Add a dash of salt to taste. Sprinkle on top of the pasta after you've added the extra cheese.

Bake uncovered in the middle of the oven until set, about 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven. Let rest 5 minutes. Serve.

Can keep in the fridge for up to a week. Reheat in a 350-degree oven or microwave. Macaroni and cheese can be assembled the day before and baked to eat. Or frozen, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Bake directly from freezer in a 350 oven.

Serves 8.

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Kitchen Idiot Howie Rumberg is an asap reporter based in New York. You can e-mail him at hrumberg(at)ap.org.

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