Mac n' Cheese

Following weeks of take-out, convenience store snacks, and a full week spent with my girlfriend from across the globe after she came to visit me in Japan, it's about damn time I came back to this blog (*sprays confetti*)! And I'm back with a simple recipe that doesn't have you doing anything too complicated.

Over in my Discord channel the other day, one of my good friends shared this lovely video of Cheetos Mac n' Cheese by Matty Mattheson. I suddenly had an unquenchable desire to make my own mac n' cheese following that, and it didn't help that another one of my good friends was making mac n' cheese at the same time while her little kid was running around playing with a ladle. I made a first batch but it turned into a flop, because I was too lazy to make a proper roux and it became a terrible mess. Now I wasn't stupid enough to not do it again this time, and it came out just the way it should have.

This should be enough for 3-4 people.

Ingredients:

• 200 g macaroni pasta
• 150 g cheddar/gouda/gruyere cheese
• 60 g butter
• 60 g flour
• 130 g milk
• salt and pepper as needed
  

1. Start off by boiling your pasta. Boil some water, put some salt inside, and when it starts boiling, put in your pasta. Let it boil for 8-10 minutes until it becomes al dente (a tad soft on the outside but chewy as you bite onto it). Set it aside when you're finished. How salty your pasta will be depends on how salty your water is, so keep that in mind when you put salt in the water. When it's finished, drain out the water but leave a little inside so the pasta doesn't dry out.
2. On a separate pot, start preparing your béchamel. Set the temperature to a low heat (170°C) and mix in your butter and flour together. When you start seeing that they've formed little lumps of dough, add in your milk and cheese then stir gently.
3. Mix the pasta into your sauce. Make sure all the pasta gets some sauce in them so it's all spread out evenly.
4. Serve your pasta on some decent looking glassware.

Surprisingly, no rice cooker involved. Excuse the mess though.

Bear in mind this recipe is a whole lot like my cheese cauliflower.

Again, really simple recipe. If you want to take it up a notch, you could add in some mozzarella and let it roast in the oven or gratinate it over a salamander, if you're privileged enough to have one of either. Wanna achieve it in your rice cooker? Put it in your rice cooker pot, top with mozzarella, and let it cook long enough for the cheese to melt, or set it on hayadaki (早炊き) for about 5-10 minutes. The result is absolute cheesy goodness.

Now if y'all excuse me, I'll be over here scarfing down my pasta. And remember kids, it's not Kraft dinner nor KD; it's mac n' cheese!