Comfort, Food and Tradition

Macaroni and Cheese is Still My Ultimate Comfort Food

Food traditions are so important, whether culturally or just something your family or chosen family do. This recipe is part of a family tradition, although each generation made their own version of macaroni and cheese. I was lucky to be able to share my version of macaroni and cheese with my elders when I hosted a few family holiday gatherings after moving back home after many years in Brooklyn learning and honing my chef skills.

I call myself a retired chef now, since all the standing and lifting have taken a toll on this body. My skills in the kitchen, the precise knife cuts, teaching students how to make a perfect hollandaise sauce are not what I miss. I miss seeing others eat my food, enjoying the flavors and textures, asking for the recipe.

But I do have the memories of life in kitchens, from my grandma making me hamburgers and fries in cast iron skillets on her O’Keefe and Merritt stove. Or my Uncle George making a holiday feast of some sort on his O’Keefe and Merritt stove. How I miss his roasted pork with apples. I never got a chance to get the recipe from him and it still makes me sad. I do however, have his old O’Keefe and Merritt stove in my kitchen now. It gets used every single day.

Out of that oven have come a multitude of pans of macaroni and cheese. Too many to even fathom honestly. Macaroni and cheese is a tradition, a comfort, a rectangular baking dish of love and soul.

I originally posted this recipe on my currently neglected food blog Black Girl Chef’s Whites . I started that blog March 17, 2009 making it almost 15 years old. I keep meaning to get back to it, but I found procrastination to be winning that war.

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My mother’s side of the family is from Louisiana, and like any self respecting Southern family we ate macaroni and cheese at every special occasion meal, be it Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or birthdays.  Not that it was reserved for special occasions, by any means.  My grandmother had her recipe for macaroni and cheese, my mother had her own recipe.  My late Uncle George, a retired Navy cook, had an incredible recipe, which sadly went with him when he passed.  Now I finally have my own to share with my daughter.

There are some who like stove top macaroni and cheese and some who like baked macaroni and cheese.  They each have their merits, but I prefer mine baked.  Stove top tends to be cloyingly creamy, clinging to the macaroni like a thick winter coat.  Baked has a firmer consistency, the elbows surrounded by a rich custard infused with shreds of cheese.

Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

16 ounces elbow macaroni

16 ounces sharp cheddar cheese

1/3 cup all purpose flour

3 teaspoons sea salt

3 teaspoons dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 1/3 cups sour cream

4 eggs

4 cups half and half

2 cups heavy  cream

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cook the macaroni according to package directions.  Rinse with cool water, then drain the macaroni well.  Place the macaroni into a buttered 15 inch X 9 inch casserole dish.

Grate the cheese using a food processor, or grate using the larger holes in a box grater.  Mix about 2/3 of the grated cheese into the macaroni.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, salt, mustard, cayenne and black pepper.

Whisk the sour cream into the dry ingredients until incorporated.  Whisk in the eggs, followed by the the half and half and cream.  Pour the custard over the macaroni.

Top the macaroni and custard with the remaining cheese.

Bake the macaroni and cheese for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and browned around the edges.  The custard will be a bit jiggly in the center, but firms up as it cools.

This macaroni and cheese is really rich, so maybe don’t eat this every week. Or do.