Mac and cheese deserves better than being a side dish apology.
It's a relatively simple proposition: pasta, cheese sauce, a crust on top. Somehow we've managed to complicate it into a competition to see who can add the greatest number of dairy products without requiring professional medical supervision. There is no need for fourteen different cheeses. Two good ones are usually enough.
The smoke should be an accent. Too much hickory and your beautiful pan of macaroni starts to taste like a shed fire. Use a restrained amount of apple, cherry or maple and let the browned cheese do some work.
Ingredients — serves six to eight.
- 400 g / 14 oz dry macaroni
- 50 g / 3½ tbsp unsalted butter and 50 g / ⅓ cup plain flour
- 700 ml / 3 US cups whole milk, warmed
- 260 g / 9 oz mature cheddar, grated; 120 g / 4 oz Gruyère or another good melting cheese
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard; black pepper; salt to taste
- 60 g / 2 oz breadcrumbs; 25 g / 1 oz grated Parmesan; 20 g / 1½ tbsp melted butter
Use a clean, oven-safe cast-iron pan or enamelled casserole; check the handle and lid ratings. A barbecue with indirect heat and a reliably measured lid temperature is ideal. Never put an ordinary plastic-handled dish over live coals.
Make it.
- Cook the pasta just short of ready. Boil in salted water roughly two minutes less than the pack specifies. Drain. It will finish cooking in the cheese sauce.
- Make a roux. Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour and cook gently for about two minutes. Whisk in the warm milk a little at a time, then simmer and stir until smooth and lightly thickened.
- Add cheese off the heat. Stir in mustard and pepper, then the grated cheeses until just melted. Taste for salt; some hard cheeses are salty enough already. Avoid boiling the finished sauce, which can turn grainy.
- Fill the cast iron. Fold through the pasta, move to the pan if necessary and scatter over breadcrumbs mixed with Parmesan and melted butter.
- Smoke gently. With indirect heat at approximately 160–180°C / 320–355°F, cook 25–40 minutes until bubbling, thoroughly hot in the middle and golden on top. A small amount of mild food-safe wood is plenty. For a casserole containing previously cooked foods, aim for 74°C / 165°F at the centre before serving.
- Rest and serve. Give it five minutes. Then put the pan down and let people help themselves. Warn them that cast iron stays brutally hot.
Why the sauce sometimes splits.
Cheese doesn't enjoy being boiled into submission. Add it to hot sauce off the heat and stir just until it melts. Mature cheddar brings flavour; Gruyère brings that glorious stretch and a little nuttiness. Together they do more useful work than eight random cheeses competing for attention.
For the topping, breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter and a little Parmesan give the pan a crust worth fighting over. And if you're cooking over charcoal, put the cast iron over indirect heat. A heavy black pot is brilliant at holding heat and equally brilliant at scorching the bottom when you put it directly over raging coals.
Can't be bothered tending a fire?
Bake it indoors at 180°C / 350°F until the centre is hot and the topping browned. If you're serving a crowd with a slow cooker, make the sauce and pasta separately, combine them in a preheated cooker and heat until thoroughly hot, then use the manufacturer's approved hot-hold setting for a short serving period. Don't leave cold cheesy pasta on keep-warm hoping it will cook itself. It won't create a crust, either.
Good with pork, ribs or a heap of roasted vegetables. Less good beside five other cream-heavy sides, unless the plan is to spend the entire afternoon asleep in a garden chair.