Molly Makes Macaroni and Cheese

That looks good.

[Man] Well, let's see how it pans out.

[Man] Ah, beautimous!

I bumped up the saturation a little bit; hot tip.

[upbeat, bright music]

This is adult mac and cheese, which is,

I suppose, my answer to the famed Annie's boxed mac

and cheese, which I have a lot of respect for.

But there are times when it's not appropriate

to make Annie's mac and cheese,

or I would encourage you to do something

that's almost as simple and infinitely more delicious.

So this is a one-pot pasta dish.

I'm using shells.

You could use any kind of small pasta shape

or a long noodle as well.

The method all happens in one pot.

It starts with butter,

there is black pep, there is a little bit of milk,

a lot of Parm, and then pasta water,

and that's how it all comes together.

So this recipe uses Parmigiano-Reggiano.

You could actually use any cheese that you want.

It's a riffable mac and cheese recipe,

but I like the flavor of aged Parm,

and I think that this is a little step up

in the world from that packet of dehydrated milk powder

and cheese that you find in your box.

I'm gonna measure out five ounces of Parm here

and then grate it in this blender,

which is a really easy way

to very quickly grate a big piece of cheese.

It doesn't work as well for softer cheeses,

but things like Parm or Pecorino go

in the blender and come out grated in just a second.

So I'm gonna blend on high.

[blender whirs loudly] Whoo!

It was literally three seconds.

It would take quite a while

to grate this much cheese with a micro plane,

and you want a finely grated Parmesan cheese

in this case because you want it to all melt

evenly into the mac and cheese.

So you don't wanna use the coarse holes of your box grater.

So either buy pre-grated cheese or throw it in your blender.

[Man] Could you use a food processor?

You could use a food processor.

The little beads would be a little bit larger,

but they would work just as well.

I like the texture of the finely grated blender cheese,

but you could use a food processor.

Okay, so then one stick of butter

which I will cut into eight pieces, eight tablespoons.

This is because you wanna be able

to add the butter gradually and not all at once

so that it emulsifies into a nice, creamy sauce,

but we'll see that in a second.

It's cold butter, not room temperature.

And then let's grate some black pep.

If you don't already own a Unicorn,

which is this, and I highly recommend it

'cause it's the best pepper grinder on the market.

So two teaspoons of black pepper is a lot,

but that's what gives this dish a little bit

more interesting flavor.

It's sort of similar to a [speaks in foreign language],

but there is no Pecorino in this dish, only Parmigiano.

And there is the addition of milk,

so we're not calling it [speaks in foreign language],

we're calling it adult mac and cheese.

See where we're at.

[measuring spoon clinks against bowl]

One.

If you haven't learned how to grind pepper by this time

in your life, this is a good time to start.

All right, two teaspoons black pepper

and then one pound of shells.

I think we're ready to head over to the stove.

First things first, three large handfuls

of salt into our pasta water.

When I say large, I mean large.

A lot of that salt is gonna be left behind

in the water, so don't freak out.

This all comes together really quickly,

but if you drop your pasta and cook it to al dente,

which, for this size of shell,

which I think is a 50...

This is shell number 50 of De Cecco.

These take 11 minutes to cook,

and that's plenty of time to assemble the sauce.

So I'm gonna drop, and then we'll come back

over here for the rest.

[shells clatter into pot]

So one pound of shells goin' in.

I'm just gonna give it a stir

so none of them stick together.

And then I'll set a timer for, let's say, 10 minutes

'cause we wanna start checking.

We wanna make sure that it doesn't get overcooked.

Something that's interesting about this recipe

is the way that the pepper is incorporated into the sauce.

I'm gonna add two of my eight tablespoons of butter

to this Dutch oven and melt it.

Instead of just adding this black pepper

after I cook the mac and cheese,

I'm gonna bloom this black pepper in melted butter

for a couple of minutes, and that's gonna really intensify

and bring out the flavor of it.

We're not looking for browned butter here,

just melted butter that's hot enough to bloom these spices.

All right, black pepper goin' in.

You'll see that immediately it starts to turn darker,

and you're seeing a little bit of sizzling.

That's what you're looking for.

[Man] How long are you cooking this for?

I can't remember.

[Man] Oh, it says a minute.

Okay. [laughs]

okay, one cup of whole milk goes in

right here to stop the butter from browning.

And then this is the liquid into

which you're going to emulsify the last six tablespoons

of butter, and that'll create the base for your sauce.

So we've got milky, buttery goodness in here.

We will bring this to a simmer.

See that the milk has just begun to simmer?

This is when we start adding our butter one piece

at a time and stirring, stirring, stirring

until all the butter has been incorporated

until we add the next piece.

This is how you get a thick, creamy sauce

versus a broken, oily one.

A broken butter sauce is one where the butter

has not emulsified with the liquid that you

are adding it to, and so it'll look yellow

and oily and it will have different a mouthfeel

that's not as pleasant.

All right, one down, here goes the next.

Okay, last piece.

We're getting thick, it looks nice and creamy,

we have emulsified, and our pasta is almost done.

Okay, so if this part of the sauce

is ready before the pasta, just turn it off

and put a lid on to keep it warm.

I lost my lid; this will do.

I'm gonna check on these shells.

Crunchy.

Needs a couple more minutes.

To be honest, this isn't really your moment

for super al dente pasta.

It's mac and cheese; it can be a little overcooked.

So before we drain the pasta, it's important

to reserve some of that pasta cooking water

which is also known as liquid gold.

So I have about two cups here that I'm gonna reserve,

and that's gonna help create our sauce.

It is magical.

Starchy pasta water is magical liquid gold.

You're throwing away one of the most important ingredients

in this recipe if you drain this pasta and forget about it.

The pasta is ready, as it turns out,

and I'm going to add it now to our butter sauce

straight outta here and then, over medium heat,

we're gonna stir, stir, stir to coat all of the shells.

So we're simmering again over here.

I'm stirring to coat all of the shells

in this buttery, milky, peppery stuff.

And then I'm gonna work in batches here,

adding Parm and pasta water, alternating between the two

until the sauce is really glossy

and saucy and cheesy and coated.

And we'll just keep an eye on things.

So couple handfuls of Parm.

Important to keep it just simmering as you do this,

and that'll help melt the cheese.

You don't really want it boiling

'cause it can get tough and stringy.

Okay, I'll add a little water to thin it out.

Oh baby, this looks good.

More water.

You don't have to use all the pasta water,

but better safe than sorry, so it's good

to get yourself two cups of it.

Okay, so we're starting to get a really nice, creamy

sauce in there.

I think it needs more Parm and it's not quite thick enough,

so I'm gonna keep adding.

You could totally do this with other cheese.

I think actually a lot of readers

who have been making it have been swapping

in different cheese besides Parm,

or you could mix a couple of different cheeses.

The method should work either way.

So it's pretty riffable.

All right, that's the end of the cheese.

You're looking pretty, pretty nice!

See that burbling sauce?

It looks like boxed mac and cheese,

but does it taste like it, no.

So I haven't added any salt to this,

but the pasta water was seasoned,

and the Parm's pretty salty, so I'm gonna give it a taste

before I add any more.

It only needs a tiny bit.

One more bowl.

Should we have a pasta party?

Woo! Woo-hoo!

Friday, guys!

Okay, Emily and Chris are gonna come over

and give me their thoughts.

Let's see. [gasps] Look at her!

Glossy like Glosserstein. I wanna take a picture.

[Emily] Suns out, guns out.

They should make adult mac and cheese air fresheners.

[Chris laughs] Eww, that's disgoosting.

You don't like?

I no like.

Do it for the Gram, baby. Yeah.

There you go! [Emily quietly screams]

This is 100% Parm?

Yes.

How do you feel about that? I know you don't like

Pecorino.

I feel like you like it

in small quantities. In small quantities.

If this were all Pecorino, you'd be--

It just does that thing where you get that wooly,

weird, Pecorino mouth. The hot.

Yeah, like the hot-- I hate the wooly mouth.

The wooly mouth. Yeah.

Eww. [Chris laughs]

Not only is I adult, but there's no bechamel involved here

so you don't have to worry

about a flour roux milk-thickened sauce.

And then it's never going into the oven,

so we're not waiting 45 minutes

for it to get hot and bubbly.

It's all happening in 15 minutes on the stove top.

So you'd be just as well off eating this in your jammies

in bed as you would be serving this for a crowd.

[Man] Are Kraft Singles an acceptable option?

Kraft Singles, yeah.

I'm gonna say you do you in this case.

If you're huge on Kraft Singles,

chop 'em up and throw them in.