Valentine's day massacre: Four cheese macaroni

If you heard a large clanging noise this past Sunday night, it was probably the sound of my arteries slamming shut. I took a page from Maggie's book and decided to make mac and cheese as a post-Valentine's Day-Valentine meal; I knew full well that it was going to be a cholesterol nightmare, but I threw caution to the wind and went for it anyway. If you are looking for a lighter or lower fat mac and cheese, this is not the recipe for you. Consider yourself warned.

So! What made this macaroni so crazy? Well, let's start with a solid pound of grated cheese (four kinds). And then move on to the quarter pound of prosciutto. And from there, to the caramelized shallots and two heads of roasted garlic.

Hungry yet?



Just devising this recipe made me drool like some prehistoric beast; I certainly growled like one once or twice as I assembled it--I lost some quality acreage on my knuckles while grating the cheese. I based the recipe on one that I found in Bon Appetit last month; I was intrigued by their tip to use eggs instead of bechamel for the custard. Though it took some care to achieve (you have to be very careful when mixing the eggs and the cheese sauce if you want to avoid scrambled eggs), it was worth it--the casserole was cheesy, gooey, creamy deliciousness from top to tail, without the trauma of whisking hot milk into flour (though the addition of some tangy buttermilk to the cheesy custard certainly didn't hurt the cause, either).

The topping might have been my favorite part, though--breadcrumbs with parmesan, garlic, and a hint of nutmeg, just to keep things interesting. It's a flavor that most will find hard to place, but it adds a lovely complexity.

Basically, this is a panful of cardiac arrest--and worth every single bite. Make it for someone you love (especially if that someone is yourself) today.

Death mac: Four cheese mac and cheese

1/4 stick butter
6-8 medium sized shallots, sliced thinly
1/4c all purpose flour
1 1/2 c buttermilk
2 c milk
1 lb shredded cheese (a good mix: parmesan, gruyere, manchego, cheddar)
1 tbsp dijon mustard
6 oz pancetta or prosciutto, diced
2 large eggs
2 heads roasted garlic, pureed

1 lb shell pasta (I used whole wheat in an attempt to be...um. Healthy. Yeah.)

Topping
1/2 c breadcrumbs
1/2 c parmesan cheese, grated
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt

1. Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the shallots and saute until caramelized.
2. Add prosciutto/pancetta; saute for 3-4 minutes more
3. Add flour, cook for 2 more minutes
4. Add milk; bring to a simmer
5. Add cheese, mustard, and garlic puree. Continue to simmer until cheese is melted. Season to taste with salt
6. Whisk eggs into medium bowl; gradually whisk in 1 c cheese sauce. GRADUALLY is key--you don't want the eggs to curdle
7. Add egg mixture back into cheese sauce
8. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 and cook the pasta in salted water according to package directions.
9. Prepare topping: breadcrumbs, parmesan, onion and garlic powders, salt.
10. Add cooked pasta to sauce; turn out into buttered casserole dish.
11. Top with breadcrumb topping.
12. Bake 25 min or so, until everything is bubbly and brown and irresistible.

Marc Meyer's Five Points Mac and Cheese

I am one of those people who gets dish envy at restaurants. And orderer's remorse. Hopefully, if we go to a restaurant together, you know me pretty well, so you won't be shocked if I ask for a taste of whatever you have that looks so good. And if I ultimately steal your plate and finish every last morsel.

Recently, we went to Five Points restaurant with a large group for brunch. Almost everyone ordered something different, and soon the plates were passed around for tastes. My friend Lindsay had brought along her younger sister, whom I'd never met. But of course I found myself scarfing down the remains of her macaroni and cheese. It was just. So. Good. Crazy-creamy with a strong cheese bite, a rich-but-not greasy or gluey sauce that kept each noodle moist. Divine. I tried to memorize each flavor, which clearly required more than one delicate spoonful. For the good of mankind, right?

So far, Marc Meyer's brunch book had not steered me wrong. His frittata method is great, and the lemon-ricotta pancake recipe has allowed me to faithfully duplicate the Five Points dish to a tee. Why would this be any different?


The ingredients are inspired. His secrets are canned evaporated milk and a block of cream cheese that melts into the sauce. Sharp cheddar and/or gruyere. Good milk and a touch of cream with quite a bit of freshly grated parmesan stirred in. If it worked, this would be my new favorite recipe for the classic dish—no whisking flour into a bechamel! I have been trying to perfect my macaroni and cheese for a long time: I've tried baked and broiled, cheese sauce and simple white sauce, a thousand variations. I have faith in Meyer's ingredients.

But it didn't work as written in the cookbook, so I'm not giving you the recipe yet. I want to play with the proportions first—as soon as we can stomach more mac and cheese. Scaling down restaurant recipes is tricky. Perhaps the sauce quantity needs to be doubled, perhaps more. The sauce looked great, but after baking as instructed, the dish was dry, lacking the creaminess of the restaurant version.

Stay tuned.

giant duck salad

When Matt and I went to France last fall, we rented a tiny apartment in Montmartre for the week so we could pretend to be locals. Montmartre seems like the Carroll Gardens of Paris: the place where regular folks can actually afford to live, and though it's not quite in the center of things, there are cheese stores and nicer apartments and perfect neighborhood restaurants to brag about. Each day we took the subway to the more central parts of the city to see museums and markets, and while we enjoyed some fancy meals there, our favorite dinner was in a casual place a few blocks from the apartment.

It was at Le Relais Gascon that I had my first French Cassoulet. It was eye-rollingly delicious with creamy beans and meltingly rich meats. But sharing the spotlight was the salad of my dreams. These are serious salads—the menu warns that they are "Salades Géantes". I think we laughed out loud when it arrived in its hulking bowl. Each salad is topped with a mountain of freshly fried, fragrantly garlicy potato slices. Inside, lardons and warm goat cheese, crisp greens and perfect vinagrette. You could order it with tomatoes and green beans, foie gras or sausage, ham, smoked salmon, duck, etc, etc. I've been trying to recreate it ever since.


A trip to Essex market provided the excuse. I picked up three beautiful bits of cheese at Formaggio, and while we could make a whole meal out of that unbelievable cheese, a salad would serve as a good foil. I chose a loaf of bread and some bitter frisée, some cheap red peppers and endive. I added some potatoes for the essential salad topping. To gild the lily, my new best friend Jeffrey the Butcher sold me the duck.

I probably should have sprung for the breast. The magret duck breasts were huge, more expensive than Shiv's entire Long Island duckling. I chickened out (ducked out?), saving my money for our fancy cheese plate, and just chose a leg. I think I've learned tonight that duck legs are good for braising, and for making confit, but really nothing special roasted. Nothing special, except for one thing—the fat. One duck leg provided the perfect amount of amazing, fragrant, musky fat to crisp up our potato slice topping. Divine. But when I try this again, it won't be with the leg.


Not much meat is needed for this recipe, especially if you're serving it with a cheese plate. But go with your own appetite. And feel free to riff on the vegetables—kirby cucumbers are a good addition, or tomatoes if they're in season. Corn cut off the cob would be great. I experimented with a vinaigrette with red wine vinegar, a touch of soft goat cheese, and a few blackberries, but your favorite simple vinagrette may work better.


Giant Duck Salad
Inspired by Le Relais Gascon

1 teaspoon Five Spice Powder
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 dried chipotle
1 duck leg (or try a breast, cooking time will vary)
2-3 medium waxy potatoes
1 head frisee and 2 heads endive (or substitute greens of your liking)
vegetables for salad: red peppers, cucumber, etc, sliced
vinaigrette (your favorite recipe)

1-2 hours before cooking, break chipotle in to three pieces or so in a small bowl. Pour a half cup of warm (not boiling) water over, let sit five minutes. Rub duck leg with Five Spice and garlic. Place in a sealable plastic bag, add orange juice, soy sauce, balsamic, and honey. Add chipotle with its soaking liquid, seal bag and shake a bit to mix ingredients and distribute the marinade. Marinate an hour or two, turning to coat the duck leg if you remember. Preheat oven to 350. Remove leg from marinade, let excess drip off. Heat an ovenproof skillet (I used cast iron) to low-medium heat, and place leg, skin side down, in it. No grease is needed since the duck will give off fat. Let brown for 10 minutes, then turn and cook five minutes more. Meanwhile, slice potatoes about 1/8" thick, leaving skin on. Add potatoes to pan when browning is complete, turn duck leg skin side down, move skillet to oven. Cook 40 minutes, flip potatoes and turn duck, then cook another 40 minutes or until duck is cooked. Meanwhile place salad and salad vegetables in a bowl, and make the vinagrette. When duck is cooked, let rest a minute. Remove skin and cut meat from the bone into small pieces. Add to salad and toss with vinagrette. Place crispy potatoes on top and serve.



In other P&C news...
Thanks to the magic of Craigslist, I have acquired a digital SLR of my very own! Perfect to celebrate the hundredth post of Pithy and Cleaver (and the recent birth of my baby neice!) Please bear with me as I learn how to use it.

Shiv vs. Pie Crust: Mushroom, shallot, and fontina quiche.

I have a secret.

Despite the fact that I am well known throughout Brooklyn for my infamous, 40-proof pumpkin pie, I have never made a pie crust. That's right! And not only THAT, but I've never even made a pie that actually USED a traditional butter crust--only graham crackers. If you ask my Texan grandmother, that makes me a cheater. If you ask me, it just makes me kind of a wuss: years of horror stories of Crusts Gone Awry (too tough! too floury!) have left me afraid to try.

Until now.

In a fit of euphoric optimism, I decided the other day that it was time to throw caution to the wind and just go for it; this happily coincided with a massive craving I was experiencing for quiche. So, I bought a pastry cutter*, and went straight to a trusted source for my recipe: Martha Stewart, and her Pate Brisee. Being me, I wasn't totally faithful to the recipe--I made a half-batch, with whole wheat flour replacing 1 1/4 cups of all purpose--but fortune smiled upon me anyway and produced a nice, flaky crust (which totally decimated my pastry cutter, though I suspect that's far more a reflection on the cutter and the awesome power of nearly frozen butter than the crust) that went beautifully with the mushroom, shallot, and fontina filling.



As far as I'm concerned, the mushroom/shallot/cheese trifecta is perfect for quiche (though next time I might try either gruyere or a gruyere-asiago mix instead of fontina); I will probably experiment with other fillings further in the future (what's up, prosciutto and gorgonzola!), but I can already tell I'll keep coming back to this classic for more. For now, however, I think the time is right for me to start using my newfound understanding of crust to experiment with other forms of pie, both sweet and savory. Any suggestions?

**UPDATE! I made another quiche last night, using asiago, mushrooms, onions, prosciutto, and scallions. I made the crust in the food processor (and I'm NEVER going back), and it was AWESOME. Highly recommended for the carnivores among us.**



Quiche with mushrooms, shallot, and fontina cheese

1/2 batch Pate Brisee (the original recipe is scaled to make two crusts)

3 large eggs
8 oz fontina cheese, grated
12 oz mushrooms, stemmed and very finely diced
3 medium-sized shallots, sliced
3/4c half and half
salt, pepper, etc

1. Preheat oven to 350F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out your dough to about 12-in in diameter; press into a 9-inch pie plate (Trick: to ease the transition from surface to plate, sprinkle a little flour on the top, then fold it in half before moving. Sounds simple, but it's extremely helpful). Line the dish with foil and fill with dried beans or pie weights; bake 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the foil and beans, prick the bottom of the crust several times with a fork, and pop it back in the oven for 10 minutes, or until golden. Remove from oven and set aside. This can be done up to 6 hours in advance.
2. In a large skillet, melt a bit of butter over medium heat; saute the shallots until they are just translucent; then, add the mushrooms. Continue to sautee over medium heat until the mushrooms have released their liquid, and then reabsorbed it. Season with salt and pepper.
   
3. Whisk together the eggs, half and half with some salt and pepper. Set aside
   
4. Grab your prepared crust. Line it with: half the cheese, then half the mushroom mixture, then the other half of the cheese, then the other half of the mushrooms. Pour the egg mixture over the top of that.
5. Bake at 350 until the custard has set; let it cool for 15 minutes before serving.
   

*Yes, I know, I could do it in the food processor. And from here on out, I probably will. But I figured that if I really wanted to understand the process, I had to do it the old-fashioned way, at least once.