Mac & cheese: A traditional comfort food gets a new flair

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

By PATRICIA MACK
FOOD EDITOR

There is no greater reason to eat macaroni and cheese than this: It's January.

Comfort in a bowl on a dark and freezing night.

But here's another. Mac & cheese has gone uptown in the hands of talented chefs who see its warm and welcoming taste as a springboard for new forms.

Serving the traditional favorite with flair is a growing trend at restaurants. We found macaroni and cheese made with the pungent Italian blue cheese, Gorgonzola; with blackened Chilean sea bass plunked right in the middle; and with a symphony of cheeses melted into the sauce.

Cheesecake Factory at The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack offers fried macaroni. These are balls of macaroni and cheese, coated with crispy crumbs, fried and served on a creamy marinara sauce.

COOKING MACARONI CORRECTLY:

1. Use rapidly boiling water (1½ gallons for 1 pound of dried macaroni). The water should cover the macaroni, cooking it evenly and draining away excess starch.

2. Be sure the water is really rolling at a boil before adding macaroni. This cooks the outside immediately and gives it a smooth edge.

3. When you add macaroni, the water will stop boiling. Stir the macaroni gently so that it doesn't stick together while waiting for the water to come back to a boil. Once it does, lower heat slightly so that macaroni cooks at a moderate boil.

4. Salt is not necessary for cooking, but it does add flavor. Cooks vary on the amount, from 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon per gallon of water.

5. Don't add oil to the water; it weighs the macaroni down.

6. Macaroni generally needs to cook slightly less than the time called for on the package. Start testing at about halfway through the recommended cooking time.

-- Marlena Spieler, author of "Macaroni & Cheese"

Kitchen manager Christian Luna says that the restaurant will serve as many as 40 or 50 orders of the innovative dish on a busy day.

Gary Needham, chef-owner of the new Silver Oak American Bistro in Ridgewood, always has macaroni and cheese on his lunch menu and is happy to make it by request at dinner. And there are often requests.

"It's one of my favorite dishes, but it poses a problem for restaurant cooking," said Needham.

Macaroni and cheese needs to be served right out of the oven to be enjoyed at its best. You can't make a huge tray of it and have it sitting around losing its heat, fresh-made texture and moisture content.

So he makes individual portions in a unique way.

Using a shallow-sided omelet pan, he tops shredded cheddar cheese with cooked elbow macaroni. As it gets toasty and frizzled on the bottom, he adds Mornay sauce, a bechamel (classic French white sauce made with milk, butter and flour) that has cheese added. Then he flips the mixture over like an omelet.

"The outside is crispy and crusty," he said. "It's delicious."

But not as delicious as his mother's macaroni and cheese that he remembers so fondly from his childhood in Louisville, Ky.

"It would come out of the oven beautiful," he recalled. "The cheese all melted and over the top, crispy, buttered breadcrumbs."

It is his theory that the current adult passion for macaroni and cheese is fueled by childhood memories.

"How often do I hear someone say, 'I haven't tasted macaroni and cheese as good as this since my (grandmother – mother – aunt) made it'?"

That is certainly true for Annette Coleman, owner of the new Mangos restaurant on Main Street in Hackensack, where soul food and Caribbean cuisine are featured.

"I have my Uncle Andrew's macaroni and cheese on the menu," Coleman said. "It's a wonderful dish. We will become known for it."

The recipe was worked out over the years, she said. She and her late uncle were of one mind on how it should be made.

"No eggs!" she said. "Neither of us liked eggs. But there was always a lot of cheese. Always. I'd tell him, 'More cheese, more cheese.'(thin space)"

There are five cheeses in the dish at Mangos.

There are also five in the macaroni and cheese served at Bacchus Chop House and Wine Bar in Fairfield -- sharp cheddar, Monterey jack, American, Romano and Parmesan.

"Everybody orders it," said owner Nadim Abousaid. It is served family-style, coming to the table very much the way Mom would serve it and a perfect accompaniment for the dry-aged beef featured at Bacchus.

Mac & cheese in Greek is pastitsio, served in all the It's Greek to Me restaurants in eight North Jersey towns.

The cheese in the creamy bechamel is likely to be kefalotyri, kasseri, graviera or a combination of these three well-known Greek cheeses. Classically, an important ingredient in the dish is a spicy meat sauce.

"It is very popular among Greeks, but it is also popular with all our customers," said Paul Vagianos, owner of the Ridgewood It's Greek to Me restaurant.

Here are some wonderful variations on the theme.

E-mail: mack@northjersey.com