Throwing down some Mac & Cheese

The Food Network cooking club challenge recipe this month was Bobby Flay's Mac & Cheese Carbonara. How could I resist! The recipe takes a lot of cheese so it is bound to have a zillion calories. The original recipe can be found here


This mac & cheese was actually a hit and some people want to take it for lunch!

Here is my adaptation to the recipe.

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter, for the baking dish
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 slices bacon sliced into 1cm peices
• 3cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1.5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2.5 cups whole milk, or more if needed, hot
• 2 large eggs, lightly whisked
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped dried thyme leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1.5 cups freshly grated Asiago cheese, plus more for the top
• 1 1/2 cups shredded 6 year old white cheddar, plus more for the top
• 3/4 cup grated aged provalone cheese, plus more for the top
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 320g rotini, cooked just under al dente
• 2 tbsp dried parsley leaves

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 10 × 10 × 2-inch baking dish and set it aside.
2. Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook until golden brown on all sides, about 8 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with paper towels.
3. Add the garlic to the fat in the pan and cook until light golden brown, 1 minute. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the hot milk, raise the heat to high, and cook, whisking constantly, until thickened, 3 to 5 minutes. Whisk in the eggs until incorporated and let cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the thyme, cayenne, and all the different cheeses until completely melted. Season with salt and pepper. If the mixture appears too thick, add additional warm milk, 1/4 cup at a time.
4. Put the cooked macaroni in a large bowl, add the cheese sauce, reserved pancetta, and the parsley, and stir until combined. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.
5. Combine the additional 1/4 cup each fontina, cheddar, Asiago, and Parmesan in a bowl, and sprinkle evenly over the top. Bake until the dish is heated through and the top is a light golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Turkey Dinner for Two

Yes, we had the turkey dinner and there was only two of us there. There was probably enough food for eight, though.

The turkey was kept cool enough in the garage. There was still ice in the brine the next day. Here is a picture of the turkey in it's brine.

Doesn't look like much bit is s few hours it will be good eats. To get the best results avoid stuffing the bird. In order to cook a stuffed bird until the stuffing reaches the safe temperature of 160F the meat will have reached well beyond this temperature. As a result, dry meat.

Prepare some aromatics such as onion, apple, cinnamon stick, sage and rosemary in a microwave safe container with about 1 cup of water. Cook for 5 minutes in the microwave.

Take the bird out of the brine, rinse and pat dry. Rub the skin with oil and season with salt, pepper and granulated garlic. Put the aromatics in the cavity of the bird.

Now the fun part. Blast the turkey in the oven at 450F for 30 minutes. Then cover the breast, put in the temperature probe and cook until it reaches 175F. This is a little higher than recommended but I figure this compensates for sub-optimal placement of the probe.

This year we went with 4 vegetables - maple glazed carrots, roasted beets with balsamic & thyme, steamed broccoli, butternut squash with maple syrup.

We also had the usual mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy.

The carcass of the beast has already been made into a soup stock. Awaiting the creation of another soup!

Merry Christmas

Beer Cornbread Dressing

Beer Cornbread Dressing

This year's dressing is surprisingly good. I would have included celery in the recipe but the house seems to be a celery free zone at the moment. I tried a similar recipe last  year but it was way too dry. The beer adds the necessary liquid to bring it together. I would recommend a pale coloured beer. A darker beer would alter the colour of the dressing too much.

Ingredient	Calories	Protein
6 slices of bacon (Sliced into 1cm pieces)	276	18.9
5-8cm of Polish Coil Sausage (sliced & quartered) 142g	370	17
2.5 medium onions (diced) 373g	157	3.4
1 Carrot (diced) 100g	41	0.9
4 cloves of garlic 17g	25	1.1
5-8cm of Dry Polish sausage (sliced & quartered) 70g	362	14.5
100g pine nuts (toasted)	673	13.7
4 cups corn bread 381g	896	22.4
1 bottle Beer	153	1.6
2 tbsp rosemary
2 tbsp sage
1 tbsp thyme
1 bay leaf
Salt & Pepper

Total Calories: 2953
Total Protein: 93.5g

1) Fry the bacon until crisp, remove the bacon
2) Fry the Polish coil in the bacon fat until browned, remove
3) put all the herbs in a coffee grinder with a bit of salt. Grind the herbs
3) Add the onion, celery, carrot & garlic with some salt and pepper and herbs. Fry until they just begin to brown. If necessary de-glaze the pan with a little of the beer
4) add back the bacon, both polish sausages pine nuts and herbs
5) add the cornbread and mix together.
6) Add enough beer to bring the mixture together. Cover and store until needed.
7) place in baking dish and bake in oven at 400 for ~20min.

Doesn't look like much but it tastes good.

And so... It Begins

The preparations are under way for Christmas Dinner.

I picked up the turkey from Aubrey's Meats yesterday, size 10lb. It is a bit of a gamble as to the size you get. I requested a smaller one but often the small ones go first.  The prize winning turkey was the 34lb bird behind the case.

I think, since we only have turkey once, maybe twice a year, let's go all out and have a good turkey. Although, this will be the third turkey for myself in 2010. Three meals out of 365 is still few enough to be considered a special meal.

This is the first time ordering a fresh free range turkey. I don't know about it's organic/inorganic status.Hopefully it will be worth the extra cash.

I brine the turkey for 24 hours before cooking it. The brine was prepared this morning and left to cool on the stove during the day. The brine follows the recipe from Alton Brown. Here is my brine this year:

4l organinc chicken broth
1c kosher salt
1/2c brown sugar
1tbsp peppercorns
1tbsp allspice berries
2tbsp candied ginger

Add all ingredients (the ginger should be finely chopped) to a large stock pot. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.

When you are ready to insert the turkey in the brine add 4l of iced water to the brine and then add the turkey. I use a large canning pot for this and store it in the garage. This time of year the garage is quite cool.

More on the turkey dinner later.