Assignment 1: Mac & Cheese
Classic Recipe
The classic Baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe uses a standard béchamel sauce base with cheese added to it for the cheese sauce. Macaroni noodles (or alternatively shells) are cooked and then the cheese sauce is added. After combining the pasta and sauce and putting in a baking dish, breadcrumbs are added to the top.
For the cheese sauce, the recipe recommends: 1½ cups grated cheddar and ½ cup mozzarella.
Although it turned out well, we found that the cheese sauce ended up being quite dry. We didn’t enjoy this as we wanted a gooier and cheesier version of the classic recipe moving forward.
Idea Generation
During our idea generation session, we talked a lot about how we see mac & cheese is a true comfort food. We think of a gooey, cheesy, and warm dish. We wanted to stay true to this idea as when people bite into our dish we want them to still think of macaroni and cheese.
With this in mind, we tried coming up with ideas that were still had this comfort food feel but had a different form. Naturally a lot of the ideas had to do with other cheese based dishes: cheese plates, mozzarella sticks, beer cheese soup, etc.
We ended up coming up with a lot of ideas but really liked these three:
- Mac & Cheese Plate: Pasta crackers, different Mac & Cheese variations
- Mac & Cheese Alternative Ingredients: Herbs, Cauliflower Crust
- Mac & Cheese Pie: Mac & Cheese inside pie crust/puff pastry
We also came up with some elements that we wanted to incorporate into our final idea.
With the three dishes that we wanted to move forward chosen and elements we wanted to incorporate discussed, we moved forward into attempting them.
Idea #1: Mac & Cheese Plate
This idea came from us thinking of other classic cheese dishes. For the initial attempt at this dish we really wanted to try to see if the pasta crackers were possible. We really wanted to incorporate this part of the dish in a very different form as we believed this was the best opportunity to change the form drastically.
When looking up ways to try to make pasta into crackers, we came upon articles that talked about using pasta rollers to make crackers as well as using lasagna noodles to make crackers. This led us to try using your basic lasagna noodle, cooking it, cutting them into cracker sized pieces, adding olive oil and seasoning, and then baking for 10 minutes. The pasta crackers turned out great!
To pair with the crackers, we wanted to have bite sized cheese pieces. To do this we took a few macaroni and cheese pieces and rolled them in ricotta cheese. Ricotta cheese was used to make the pasta shells stick together and also create a crust when we baked them again. Some cheeses, including ricotta get harder after heat is added.
This technique worked well as the ricotta cheese did a good job of keeping the shells together.
Critique: The crackers were good. They looked nice, tasted good, and had the correct feel. They could have been crispier in the center, probably less olive oil would make them better.
The major critique of this dish is that there is too much pasta and not enough cheese. The gooeyness of the cheese is lost when the pasta is baked twice and the pasta also gets overcooked. The breadcrumbs were also not used in this dish and that is another piece of the classic dish that we would like to incorporate moving forward.
Idea #2: Alternative Ingredients — Cauliflower
When we considered other variations for macaroni and cheese, one concept we kept coming back to was the idea of adding to the original recipe. Ingredients like basil, nuts, and even avocado came to mind, but we drew inspiration from a cauliflower crusted grilled cheese recipe we found online to imagine a cauliflower crust that could somehow sandwich the mac and cheese
Once we talked through the idea further, it became clear that we wanted to create a coating that would actually encase the macaroni and cheese in its entirety. We blended, cooked and combined the cauliflower into a parmesan-egg concoction we hoped would compliment the cheesiness of the macaroni. Driven both by the idea of using cauliflower as bread and from our talks of mac and cheese pie, we decided to bake the cauliflower mix into a pyrex dish that we could later flip on top of the mac and cheese in a comforting envelopment of flavor.
Critique:
While the cauliflower complimented the macaroni and cheese, we thought the ratio should have had more macaroni and less cauliflower. Cauliflower is more flavorful than either of us remembered, and with both parmesan and egg to richen it further, it was a little overpowering.
Additionally, the cauliflower stuck to the bowl even though we lathered it in butter first. If we were to do another iteration, we probably would use parchment paper to make the process easier and more attractive. Overall, we enjoyed the dish but believe it could have been improved with a better ratio of ingredients and an easier way to take it out of the dish.
Idea #3: Mac & Cheese Pie
The idea for this dish came by swapping ingredients. Instead of using bread crumbs we thought of baking the mac & cheese in a pie, which would replace the breadcrumbs and also add a bit of sweetness to the dish with the buttery, flaky crust of a pie.
After further discussion, we knew we wanted to make something similar to a pie cookie. When we tried this however, the pie crust collapsed too much in the muffin tin we were using so we just created small pies. This also worked well.
Critique: Although we enjoyed the taste, we felt some of the flavor of the original baked mac & cheese was lost. The sweet element of the pie crust made the dish taste a bit like cream cheese wontons and because of that we thought that in future trials we would add a cream cheese frosting or base to add that element.
Another critique of the dish is that it looked very bland. The pale crust of the pasta, the cheese, and the pie crust did not look as appetizing as we would have liked. To change this in future trials, we would add herbs and other elements to brighten the dish.
Idea Selection:
We decided to choose the Mac & Cheese Plate as our final idea. This was chosen because it was the proper blend of unique form factor and staying true to the flavors of the classic mac & cheese dish.
Iteration:
Round 1:
One of our largest critiques of our first trial of the Mac & Cheese Plate was the cheese aspect. In double-baking the pasta with cheese, we felt that the cheese was too dry and didn’t have the gooey, rich flavor that we were looking for. In order to correct for this, we decided to try something different with the cheese.
The cheese sauce is really what we wanted to come through in this part of the dish, so we decided to ditch the pasta in the cheese balls and try to get just a cheese ball. To do this, we made the cheese sauce, cooled it until it was workable, and then rolled it into balls. The balls of cheese were covered in ricotta cheese and bread crumbs, which created a layer to block the melted cheese sauce from spilling out and left us with the hard outside and gooey inside we were looking for. These balls were baked to harden the ricotta, brown the breadcrumbs, and warm and melt the cheese sauce, leaving us with something similar to a homemade cheese curd.
This technique worked fantastically. Although there was a little bit of leakage, the cheese balls held up nicely and created a very unique delivery method for the cheese sauce. The gooeyness was present, and the rich cheese sauce was really able to come through with this iteration.
Critique: The form was there, but the chefs commented on some some potential flavor tweaks for us to make. They suggested that adding a salty, sharp element to the ricotta would help give strength to the overall cheese flavor, which we thought about changing with lemon or extra parmesan cheese on the outside. Color was also a continued concern as it looked very pale without any garnishes.
Round 2:
We wanted to use the critiques of our dish from the chefs to push our idea further. The lack of color and flavor tweaks were things we definitely wanted to work on.
For this round we chose to incorporate parmesan cheese into the ricotta coating. There were comments from chefs that they couldn’t taste the sharp cheese as much and that the dish needed a little more salt. We thought this would be a good way to incorporate both of those elements, without messing with our cheese sauce.
Another change we made was incorporating herbs into our breadcrumbs. We wanted to add the herbs to add some more flavor and add color. We decided on adding parsley and basil.
Critique: While the dish turned out, we felt that herbs were too much. They added moisture to the breadcrumbs that made them soggy when baking and the color wasn’t as appealing as we wanted it to be. The parmesan cheese however was a great addition to the ricotta as it definitely sharpened the cheese flavor and added the saltiness that was needed.
Cheese Sauce Iteration:
Another aspect of the dish that we iterated is our cheese sauce. Our main critique of the classic dish is that the cheese wasn’t gooey or rich enough. We knew that it needed more cheese as it didn’t have enough fat from the cheese to make it as rich as we wanted. Each round of making the dish we tried different cheese combinations. I have listed different cheese combinations that we used (and when we used them).
Classic dish recipe:
1 1/2 cup cheddar
1/2 cup mozzarella
Idea testing recipe:
1 cup cheddar
1/2 cup mozzarella
1/2 cup parmesan
2 oz cream cheese
Iteration 1 recipe:
1 1/2 cup cheddar
1/2 cup parmesan
3/4 cup mozzarella
1/2 cup gouda
Iteration 2 recipe:
Same as iteration 1 except replace gouda cheese with gruyere cheese.
Final cheese recipe:
We chose to use the iteration 1 recipe as it was the best combination of the richness and gooeyness that we were looking for.
Final Dish:
Our final dish incorporated all that we had learned from our previous trials and iterations. We used the basics from iteration 1, with better cooking techniques (that we learned from making the dish 2 more times) and adding parmesan to the ricotta cheese. We also added parsley as a garnish to brighten the colors of the dish and add a tiny bit of flavor.
Final Recipe:
Ingredients:
2 cup milk
3 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoon flour (all-purpose)
5 lasagna noodles
Salt
Ground black pepper
Thyme
Rosemary
Olive oil
1 cup bread crumbs
3/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 cup gouda cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
1 tsp. chopped parsley
Instructions:
- Heat oven to 350F. Bring large pot of water to boil and salt it.
- Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. When small bubbles appear along sides, take saucepan off heat. Add lasagna noodles to boiling water. Cook pasta until al dente and remove from water and allow to cool.
- In a separate medium saucepan on medium-low heat, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook, stirring until the mixture browns. Add about 1/4 cup of milk and whisk mixture until smooth. Add more milk and repeat. Continue until all milk is added. Add the cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, and gouda cheese to the mixture, stirring until combined. Add 1/2 cup parmesan cheese as you take the mixture off the stove. Spread cheese sauce thin on baking sheet and put in freezer to cool.
- With cooled pasta, cut the lasagna noodles into 3in x 3in squares. Place squares on baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Brush olive oil on edges of noodle squares. Sprinkle on thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper to taste. Put in oven and bake until golden brown (about 10 min.)
- Increase oven temperate to 400F. Combine remaining parmesan cheese with ricotta cheese. When cheese sauce is cooled and gelatinous, spoon the cheese into 2 teaspoon sized balls (using your hands helps). After balls are created, roll cheese balls in ricotta mixture until liberally coated. Roll balls in breadcrumbs. Place balls on baking sheet. Bake balls until golden brown (about 10 minutes).
- Top cheese balls with parsely and serve with crackers.
