Alphabet Acronym Soup

Ingredients

12 oz box pasta (elbow, fusilli, or some type that will hang on to sauce)
2.25 cups water
1.5 cups milk
3 cups cheese
use a mix of hard cheeses and melty cheeses
I have been using gruyere, cheddar, and mascarpone
nutmeg
ground mustard
pepper flakes (or cayenne pepper)

Preparation

Put milk and water in sauce pot large enough to hold the pasta and cheese and slowly (SLOWLY) heat
really slowly
no, really slowly
like start on the lowest setting and when pan is warm to the touch, increase to next highest heat
do this until incremental increase in temperature to avoid scalding until mixture is just boiling

Add uncooked pasta and reduce heat to a simmer
cook pasta until just past al dente, 6-8 minutes
season with pepper flakes (or cayenne pepper), ground mustard, salt, and white pepper

Add ~1 cup of high-water shredded cheese (such as deli American or mozzarella)
when melted, remove the pot from heat
add ~1 cup of denser cheese (such as gruyere or cheddar)
stir until melted
add mascarpone cheese (or Neufchatel or Philadelphia cream cheese)
stir until mixed

You can stir in any mix-ins at this point. I like to add ground beef or tomato sauce.

Traditional mac and cheese is a baked dish consisting of macaroni pasta covered in cheese sauce and topped with bread crumbs.

No part of traditional mac and cheese is gluten-free.

The sauce is emulsified by with a roux – a mix of flour and fat that serves to thicken and emulsify the sauce and prevent the cheese from “breaking” (separating into curds and whey, which gives a grainy texture).

The macaroni is a dried pasta made with durum wheat.

The topping is optional, but provides a nice contrast in texture.

There are workarounds for all of these, and there are plenty of options. For quick and convenient mac and cheese, I like the Amy’s Gluten Free Mac And Cheese.

But sometimes it’s good to splurge a bit.

Mac and cheese is one of those things that is made traditionally for the sake of being traditional.

Macaroni works just fine, but the point of the pasta is to hold the sauce. And thicker sauces benefit from pasta shapes with more surface area. I personally prefer fusilli (sometimes called rotini), a kind of spiral stick pasta. All the good gluten-free pasta manufacturers make fusilli pasta.

The only real reason to bake mac and cheese is to crips the topping. You can accomplish the texture benefits in other ways (crispy bacon bits, chives, or even pre-toasting bread crumbs). All that’s missing is the yummy, crispy browned cheese, thanks to the Maillard reaction. (More on that in a bit.)

An idea I’ve been playing around with – but don’t have entirely worked out yet – is to brown the top of each serving by grating parmesan cheese on top of the mac and cheese and browning it with a blowtorch.

The cheese sauce is made on the stovetop, and then cooked pasta is mixed in. At this point, it’s cooked and perfectly edible. I often convince myself there is no point in dirtying a casserole – or waiting to eat the yummy mac and cheese.

While we’re at it, why dirty another pot cooking the pasta before adding it to the sauce? We’re going to use liquid (typically dairy) to make the sauce, so let’s just cook the pasta in the dairy!

The hare-brained geniuses at Modernist Cuisine started this whole one-pot mac and cheese thing several years ago, and they looked into why Kraft Mac And Cheese works so well where many home recipes fail. And it comes down to science – an emulsifying salt called sodium phosphate. They use a more easily attainable alternative, sodium citrate.

You can get sodium citrate at well-stocked food shops, or order it on Amazon. (It has to be the salt version – citric acid will do the opposite of what you want, and it is used in cheesemaking to create curds from milk.) But I never have sodium citrate on hand when I want to make mac and cheese, so I use something that often is employed as an emulsifier – mustard seed powder. (Mustard is a common ingredient in mac and cheese.)

Cheese selection is crucial. It’s one of the headliners of the dish, after all.

Since emulsification is the name of the game, we can use the dirty secret of the cheese world – American Cheese. We’re not talking about “processed cheese food” – no knockoff Kraft singles for you. Real American cheese is a mix of firm cheeses like cheddar, formed into blocks. They include emulsifiers to keep everything nice and uniform. And it can be purchased in loafs from deli counters.

You can also use another emulsified cheese food product – Mascarpone. Which is what I use.

We need a mix of flavors, too. All the fat will tend to mask flavors, so having some more strongly flavored cheeses will help. Experiment – sharp cheddar, smoked gouda, gruyere, just about anything.

Theron’s Mac And Cheese

The word “curry” is kind of a funny thing. Westerners think of it as an Indian dish, but apparently, if you ask someone from India about curry, they won’t know what you’re talking about. Or at least it won’t be a “thing” to them.

Not that they don’t eat what we call “curry” in India. It’s just more a cooking method than a dish. Or so I gather.

There was a Thai place near our house that we were ordering take out on Sundays, and they had a couple different curries that we ordered just to have for lunches during the week. It seemed dumb to be spending take out side dish prices for a cup of curry when I could be making it.

I started doing research, but was quickly intimidated by recipes because every one was different, and they didn’t make it clear what was essential and what was optional. So here is what I’ve figured out.

The core of curry is a mixture of spices, called garam masala. I’ve read that there are as many garam masala recipes as there are cooks, so there’s not a standard combination.

Curry is essentially a sauce that is built on a base of onion, garlic, and ginger. This part seems pretty standard, kind of an Indian version of mirepoix (onions, garlic, and celery – a common French sauce base).

The spices are mixed with this base, and some combination of tomatoes, chicken or vegetable stock, coconut milk, and yogurt.

The sauce usually has various chopped vegetables and/or meat cooked in it.

This obviously allows for all kinds of variations, hence all the different recipes. So here is what I ended up making:

Garam Masala

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons cardamom seeds
• 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoons black peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 20 cloves
• 1 stick cinnamon, broken into pieces
• 1 dried chile de arbol, stemmed, seeded, and crumbled
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly ground
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Roast the first eight ingredients (everything but the nutmeg, salt, and ground pepper) in a pan over high heat for a few minutes (until it smells really good and the seeds start popping).
2. Cool for 5 minutes.
3. Grind everything together.
4. Makes enough for several batches of curry. Store in a cool, dark place.

Curry

Ingredients

• 1 pound meat (pork tenderloin, beef, chicken), cubed
• 4 tablespoons garam masala (see recipe above)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 Serrano chiles, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
• 1 box or large can of chopped tomatoes (I used Pomi chopped tomatoes – see notes in Tomato Sauce recipe)
• 1 can (13.5 ounce) coconut milk
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 potato, diced

Directions

1. Season meat with 2 tablespoons of the garam masala and cook – I like cooking the meat sous vide.
2. Heat a couple tablespoons of oil (I prefer safflower oil, but any neutral high-heat oil will do) in a sauce pan in medium-high heat.
3. Sauté garlic, ginger, and chiles in the oil until they smell good (a minute or two).
4. Add onion and 2 tablespoons of the garam masala to the pan, reduce heat to medium, and sauté until the onions start to soften and turn translucent (5-10 minutes).
5. Add tomatoes and stir until the sauce starts to bubble and reduce heat to a simmer.
6. Stir in the coconut milk, carrots and potatoes.
7. Simmer long enough to cook the vegetables, stirring occasionally.
8. Stir in cooked meat, and simmer until ready to serve over rice or noodles.

Makes about 8 servings.

The longer the curry simmers, the more the flavors mix and the better it tastes, but you may want to partially cover the pan to avoid reducing it too much.

Okay, here’s the lasagne recipe that I made with my tomato sauce.

This recipe is designed for a large 11×14″ (4 quart) casserole. If you only have the more common 9×13″ (3 quart) casserole, either make a second smaller casserole (like a 8×8″) or plan on having leftover tomato sauce and cheese.

Ingredients

• 12 ounces lasagna noodles (I like RP’s fresh gluten free lasagna sheets)
• 2 batches (about 50 ounces) pasta sauce (see Tomato sauce recipe)
• 1 pound sausage
• 1 pound ground meat (lamb, pork, beef, etc.)
• 1 tablespoon ground fennel seed
• 2 15-ounce containers ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese
• 3 tablespoons arrowroot powder
• salt
• pepper

Directions

1. Make the tomato sauce (see tomato sauce recipe).
2. Remove the sausage from casing and brown.
3. Season ground meat with salt, pepper, and ground fennel seed and brown.
4. Add sausage and meat to tomato sauce.
5. Add just enough water to arrowroot powder to make a slurry and stir into the tomato sauce and let simmer, stirring occasionally.
6. Place noodles in casserole and pour hot water over it for a couple minutes, then remove and stack between paper towels to dry off. (If using dried lasagne noodles, partially cook them in boiling water instead.)
7. Whisk the eggs and mix into ricotta.
8. Add chopped parsley to ricotta mixture.
9. Place a layer of lasagne sheets on bottom of a lightly-oiled casserole.
10. Spoon 1/3 of the tomato sauce on top of the lasagne sheets and smooth with a spatula.
11. Scoop 1/3 of the of the ricotta mixture on top of the tomato sauce and smooth out as much as possible.
12. Sprinkle 1/3 of the mozzarella cheese on top of the ricotta cheese.
13. Add two more layers of noodles, tomato sauce, ricotta mixture, and mozzarella cheese.
14. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.
15. Cover casserole with foil and place in a 350° F oven for 1 hour.
16. When 15-20 minutes remain, remove foil to brown top.
17. Rest for 10-15 minutes before serving.

For some reason, I don’t particularly like tomatoes themselves, but I love tomato sauce.

Forget about jarred pasta sauces. They may be convenient, but the ingredients are usually a horror show of preservatives and mystery additives. It’s just not worth it – it’s way too quick and easy to make your own sauce.

If you have the time and energy, you can use fresh tomatoes. But you want to peel and seed them, which is a bit of a process. For everyday sauces, I keep chopped tomatoes in the cupboard. It’s a shortcut but it means you can make homemade tomato sauce in a flash.

I currently use Pomi chopped tomatoes. They come in 750g (~26 oz) boxes and stack nicely in the cupboard. I also like diced San Marzano tomatoes (even though the ones you can get in markets in the U.S. aren’t exactly “real”), but the Pomi boxes are BPA free (unlike most canned tomatoes), taste like actual tomatoes, are super-convenient, and there’s nothing added.

Honestly, most nights that I need a tomato sauce, I dump a box of the Pomi chopped tomatoes in a sauce pot, sprinkle in some dried oregano and basil, add a little sugar, and maybe some Sriracha sauce, and simmer for a bit. It takes 10-15 minutes, tops. It usually takes longer to cook the pasta.

However, here’s a recipe for when you have a little more time:

Ingredients

• 1.5 pounds of tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped – about 1 box or 1 large can
• 1 medium onion (I like red, but white or yellow is fine), diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 2 tablespoons Safflower (or other high-heat) oil
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons dried basil
• fresh-ground pepper (to taste)
• salt (to taste)
• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar (optional)
• 2 tablespoons Sriracha sauce (optional)

Directions

1. Heat oil over medium-high heat in a sauce pan.
2. Sauté garlic until it smells good.
3. Add onion and carrot and sauté until the onions start to turn translucent and the carrots start to soften.
4. Stir in chopped tomatoes.
5. Season with 1 tablespoons each of oregano and basil.
6. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce starts to bubble.
7. Decrease heat to a simmer.
8. Add sugar to taste, if desired. The carrots should already provide some sweetness, but you may want a sweeter sauce.
9. If you want a thinner sauce, use an immersion blender to adjust the chunkiness as desired.
10. Stir in remainder of oregano and basil.
11. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
12. If desired, squirt in Sriracha sauce.

Notes

Makes about 25-30 ounces of sauce, depending on your add-ins and how long it simmers – enough for about a pound or two of spaghetti, depending on how much you like. You can double the recipe to make enough for a typical lasagna.

The longer you simmer the sauce, the better it gets. It also gets thicker and less watery as well, which can be helpful if you want to use it for pizza or lasagna.

You can add in cooked meat or vegetables as needed for your use.