00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with New Orleans Mac and Cheese.
00:08That's right, I'm very excited to show you my version of this,
00:12which is not necessarily how they make it there, but rather how I think it should be made there.
00:17Since I'm going to add a few ingredients that, quite frankly, I'm shocked are not already being commonly used.
00:23And I think they make this even more special than it already is.
00:26And to get started, we will add some diced onions to a little bit of olive oil
00:30that we have in a pot set over medium-high heat.
00:33And after tossing in a nice big pinch of salt, we will cook those stirring for about two minutes,
00:39just to give them a head start, before we add our celery and our diced bell pepper.
00:44And in New Orleans, these three ingredients are referred to as the Holy Trinity,
00:48and they are the aromatic vegetable base for many of the city's most delicious recipes.
00:52And what we'll do is continue cooking our Holy Trinity stirring for another three or four minutes or so,
00:58or until our onions turn translucent and our pepper and celery just start to soften up.
01:04And when I heard there was a thing called New Orleans Mac and Cheese,
01:07I was 100% positive the Holy Trinity would be involved.
01:10But much to my shock and surprise, it was not.
01:14But I am so glad I included them here, since I thought they did wonderful things.
01:18But anyway, once we're happy with how our vegetables look, we will toss in a generous amount of butter,
01:24followed by some smoked paprika, some freshly ground black pepper, a little bit of garlic powder,
01:31as well as some ground cumin, and then finally the rest of our salt.
01:35And we'll go ahead and stir all that together and cook this for another minute or so,
01:39or until our butter is melted and the spices are fragrant.
01:42And that's it. Once we've cooked that stirring for a few minutes,
01:47we'll go ahead and toss in our flour,
01:49and we'll stir that in and cook that for about two minutes
01:52to form what's known as a roux, R-O-U-X.
01:56And once we've cooked the raw edge off that flour,
01:59and it's kind of toasting and sticking to the bottom of the pot,
02:02we'll go ahead and transfer in some cold heavy cream,
02:05followed by some whole milk.
02:06And once that's in there, we'll take a whisk,
02:09and we'll give that a thorough mixing,
02:11and we will keep mixing until all that roux dissolves in,
02:15and we can't feel anything still stuck to the bottom of the pan.
02:19And then what we'll do is wait for this to come back to a simmer,
02:22which is probably going to take a few minutes.
02:25And you'll see as your mixture starts to boil,
02:27it's going to thicken up,
02:29and if everything goes according to plan,
02:31it should look something like this.
02:33And once it does, we'll reduce our heat to medium-low,
02:37and we'll let this simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally.
02:41And during that time, because we added that paprika,
02:44and some of my bell peppers were red,
02:46this cream sauce is going to take on a beautiful warmer color.
02:49And once it does, and this is simmered for about five minutes,
02:52we'll turn off the heat,
02:54and we'll whisk in whatever cheeses we're going to use,
02:57which for me is going to be half sharp cheddar and half Monterey Jack.
03:00Okay, apparently mozzarella is also a popular choice.
03:04But I'm sorry, I'm just not a big mozzarella fan in mac and cheese.
03:08All right, it's all stretched, no flavor.
03:10But anyway, use what you want.
03:13I mean, you are, after all, the dochi of how this should be.
03:16Oh, and by the way, we're only adding 75% of the cheese at this point,
03:20since we want to reserve 25% for the top.
03:23And that's it.
03:24As soon as that cheese melts in, our sauce is done,
03:27and we'll simply reserve that until our pasta is cooked.
03:31And while spaghetti is by far the most popular choice for New Orleans mac and cheese,
03:35I personally think Bucatini is a much better choice,
03:39and from what I hear, the original choice of the Italian immigrants,
03:42who inspired this amazing variation on an American classic.
03:46And since the pasta is hollow, it does an amazing job of soaking in the sauce.
03:50But no matter what you use, we're going to boil that in salted water
03:54until it's just barely cooked.
03:57All right, this package said cook at 9 to 11 minutes.
04:00So I set my timer for 8 1⁄2,
04:02and that's going to be just about perfect,
04:04considering we're going to bake this in the oven for about a half hour.
04:08And that's it.
04:08Once our pasta is cooked, we will drain that very well,
04:11and we'll go ahead and transfer that into a casserole dish.
04:14And then before it gets too sticky and hard to move,
04:17we'll grab our tongs,
04:19and we will quickly distribute that as evenly as possible.
04:22But we don't have to get it perfect yet,
04:25because we're going to do this again once our sauce has been poured over,
04:29which I'm going to do with a ladle,
04:31even though you could probably just pour everything over the top.
04:34But my theory is by ladling this,
04:36I'm going to get better distribution of that Holy Trinity,
04:39which may or may not make any difference.
04:42But I've always enjoyed a good ladling,
04:44so just dump it all on at once if you want.
04:47But this is how I did it.
04:49And once that was finally accomplished,
04:51I grabbed my tongs,
04:53and I gave that bucatini the old shake-a-shake-a
04:56to help settle that sauce down in.
04:59And we'll also try to make sure that pasta has been distributed
05:02as uniformly as possible.
05:04And then once we're finally done fussing around,
05:06we'll go ahead and sprinkle over the rest of our cheese.
05:09And then if you want,
05:11you could add the traditional breadcrumb topping to this,
05:13but I decided not to.
05:16All right, it didn't look like most versions used one.
05:18And since I had already made a couple other major changes,
05:21I did not want to temp fate.
05:23Although after the cheese was down,
05:25I did sprinkle the top with cayenne.
05:27So I guess this technically counts as a topping.
05:29But in any event,
05:32once we're done,
05:33this is now ready to transfer into the upper center
05:35of a 425-degree oven
05:38for about 30 minutes or so,
05:40or until our top is golden brown
05:42and our sauce is bubbling around the edge.
05:45And yes,
05:46this does look amazing.
05:47And you really want to start eating right now.
05:50But do yourself and everybody else a favor
05:52and hang tight for about 10 minutes
05:54so this has a chance to set up texturally
05:56and cool down just a touch.
05:59And while I waited,
06:00I garnished with some chives
06:01since I had some in the garden.
06:03And after letting this cool for about 10 minutes,
06:06I grabbed a spatula and cut out a piece.
06:09And I went ahead and served that up.
06:11And that, my friends,
06:12was every bit as good as it looks.
06:14And every bit as delicious as you would think.
06:17All right, forget about my controversial inclusion
06:19of the Holy Trinity
06:20in those Cajun spices,
06:23or as they're called in Cajun country,
06:25spices.
06:26All right, even without those additions,
06:28this is a beautifully creamy,
06:30just decadent enough world-class mac and cheese
06:33and you might not think that using a long noodle
06:35like spaghetti or bucatini
06:37would make that big of a difference
06:39compared to like an elbow macaroni,
06:41but it really, really does.
06:43So to summarize,
06:44I absolutely loved how this came out.
06:47And I think that Holy Trinity
06:48vegetable component we added,
06:50along with that little touch of spice,
06:52really did elevate things.
06:54And I'll just say this one more time.
06:56I'm really not sure
06:57why it's not already being added.
06:59And if you know the reason,
07:00maybe leave it in the comments.
07:02But anyway,
07:03if you're looking for a new
07:04and I think very exciting addition
07:06to your mac and cheese recipe rotation,
07:09I really do hope you give this a try soon.
07:12So please follow the links below
07:14for the ingredient amounts,
07:16a printable written recipe,
07:17and much more info as usual.
07:19And as always,
07:22enjoy.
07:23Love you.
07:34Love you.
07:38Love you.
07:38Love you.
07:48Love you.
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