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| Joined: | Tue Jun 7th, 2005 |
| Location: | Colorado Springs, Colorado USA |
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The key seems to be in the selection of cheeses, as well as some minor substitutions in the milk/half-and-half. And with the inclusion of a small quantity of Black Forest ham.
Here is what I can remember of the changes:
Skip the Half-and-half, and just use 2% or fat-free milk Total of 1/2 Qt, plus 2 cups). (don't worry about fat free not being rich enough, the amount of cheese and butter in the recipe means you'll never miss the milk fat).
Used a full 16 oz (1lb) of elbow macaroni, to make 2 each 2qt cassarrole pans of mac and cheese.
1/2 "slab" of Black Forest ham, about 1/4 in thick, by 5X5 inches, diced into 1/4 in cubes.
Cheeses used:
3/4 C Grated Asiago
Smoked Gouda
Sharp Cheedar
Jarlsberg
Queso Fresca
Velveta Cheese Product
Philly Cream cheese
Except for the Queso and Velveta, which were cubed, everything else was grated from approx 8oz blocks. All cheeses with the excpetion of the Asiago, were approx 8oz each.
With the panko topping, I added approx 2/3C grated parmesano reggiano cheese.
The mixture of cheeses was especially flavorful this time, creamy, and not too "stringy" when eaten. And between the smoked Gouda and the Black Forest ham, there was a destinctive but not over-powering smokey aroma and flavor.
Also, though there wasn't a lot of the ham, the entire dish picked up a subtle but noticable ham flavor which really took this up to another level.
All in all, this was absolutely a "would pay good money in a restaraut for this" version. This is one of the reasons wuff wanted to get this "update" posted even though Vargr couldn't remember the name of one of the cheeses. Wuffy certainly wants to taste this again!
Last edited on Fri May 4th, 2012 02:03 am by Vargr
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