Mac- N- Cheese

[onthedeck]

This forum is awesome...Ok, does anyone have a great Mac-N-cheese recipe that easy to duplicate and can go far. We have 500 to cook for and the are requesting Mac. We typically limit ours to 100 peeps b/c it's pretty involved. Any ideas?????

 

[bpopovitz]

There is a no boil mac & cheese recipe that i posted that others have been sucessfull in duplicating.  It's great fills up a 13*9 and it's super simple.  Would be very easy to multply out.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/96882/no-boil-macaroni-mac-cheese

In the oven it takes about an hour and in the smoker it takes about 1 hour 45 - 2 hours.

 

[onthedeck]

That sounds great, do you mind emailing it to me to test? 

mljudge@gmail.com 

 

[mballi3011]

We have a good recipe for what we call "Heartattack Mac" but it is really labor intensive.

 

[onthedeck]

Yeah, ours is labor intensive also...bpopovitz  hooked me up, i just need to figure out how many that serves and do a couple test runs in the kitchen. It might not work for 500, but it just might work for our Sunday take out business. 

 

[new2que]

we did a "smoked gouda mac 'n cheese" the other day.  Real simple really.  Just cooked the elbow noodles, then slowly mixed in gouda chunks until they all had melted (amount of Gouda varies due to your taste).  Added some milk as needed to loosen things up.

had it open on the smoke for an hour, then foiled for about another hour... and boy did it have a great color on the top layer from the smoke!  I personally mixed it up with some chopped sauced rib meat trimmed off our spares, ooooh boy it was good.

Like most of what we do though, there aren't recipes, so it may not help very much... and the gouda is expensive to do on a large scale.  Definitely kicks the class up a notch on this backyard favorite.

 

[bpopovitz]

I would ball-park 12-15 servings, maybe more depending on how many sides you have.  The best part is that it really is extremely easy to assemble and clean up is a snap.  If you like a creamier mac & cheese maybe sub some velveeta for some of the other cheese.  I havent tried that yet, but I cant think that it would hurt.

 

[onthedeck]

My wife didn't like the consistency of it, it was like cottage cheese..We used whole milk, sharp cheddar and margarine...it tasted delicious though...it was just a little runny out of the oven. Did anyone else have that issue or did i do something incorrectly? 

 

[bpopovitz]

I thnk you got it right, the sonistency is different from the norm.  I haven't tried this yet, but maybe subbing some american or velveeta cheese would make it a bit creamier.

 

[scarbelly]

Here is one we used to cater a wedding rehersal dinner - we put them into small foil ramekins and it worked very well

Here is the site we got the 4oz ramekins from

http://www.kitchendance.com/inalfocu.html

7 Cheese Mac and Cheese

Prep Time: 30 min

Cook Time: 1 hr 10 min

Serves:12 servings

Ingredients

• 1 pound elbow macaroni
• 6 eggs
• 1/2 cup cubed Velveeta cheese
• 1/4 pound (1 stick) butter, melted
• 3 cups half-and-half, divided
• 2 cups grated sharp yellow Cheddar, divided
• 1 cups grated extra-sharp white Cheddar
• 3/4 cup grated mozzarella
• 1/2 cup grated Asiago
• 1/2cup grated Gruyere
• 1/2 cup grated Monterey Jack
• 1/2 cup grated Muenster
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the macaroni and cook until slightly al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain and set aside to keep warm.

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl until frothy.

Add the Velveeta, butter and 2 cups of the half-and-half to the large bowl of eggs. Add the warm macaroni tossing until the cheese has melted and the mixture is smooth. Add the remaining half-and-half, 1 1/2 cups of the sharp yellow Cheddar, the remaining grated cheeses, and salt and pepper, tossing until completely combined in the large bowl.

Pour the mixture into 9 by 13-inch casserole or baking dishes (approximately 3 (3-quart) baking dishes) and bake for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of sharp yellow cheese and bake until golden brown on top, about 30 minutes more.

Serve hot.

 

[onthedeck]

@bpopovitz

It worked great! people were really pleased with the recipe. The only thing is that in Cambro's the Mac continued to cook so it was a little on the dry side 2 hours later when it was served..that's going to be a tough one to overcome..but all in all i was very pleased..it took LOTS of test runs to get it right in the commercial kitchen...thank you so much! 

 

[bpopovitz]

So glad it worked out for you.  You could always undercook it a bit and then move it to the working area.  Have some heavy cream ready to stir in if needed.  Whenever I re-heat I put a little pat of butter and some milk in.