I love mac and cheese so I wanted to try a new way of doing it. The way my mom makes it has chunks of cheese interspersed between milky pasta so I decided to do a cheese-sauce based recipe.
Now I'd been jonesing for the mac & cheese with beef soup from Hale and Hearty for a while and I didn't want to have the mac with no meat protein so here's what I did.
I remembered watching a Bobby Flay throwdown while my video card was on the fritz and it was him vs this macaroni and cheese queen. So I looked up his recipe and added what he did to what I'd already planned.
I browned the beef first and set it aside. Didn't measure exactly just used the pink bits from the pack I'd defrosted in the freezer.
Boiled the water for the mac and cooked it to not quite al dente.
Then I started grating. I hate grating manually, but that's all we have in the apartment. I did almost a whole pound each of asiago, fontina and extra sharp cheddar. My arm hates me.
I put two cans of condensed milk in the pot and added a container of sour cream to this with about 1.5 cups of water to balance. I heated this up.
I used the oil from the beef to brown the pancetta in a larger pot and added the flour.
I poured the milk mixture in then whisked away.
I added 3 egg yolks and one whole egg to this.
I put a bit of tomato paste in.
Then I took it off the heat and added thyme, cayenne, the cheeses, salt, pepper, a dash of soy, and a little powdered mustard.
Mixed the pancetta, beef and macaroni into the pot then poured it into a 3qt casserole and a 2.2 qt casserole since I made too much.
I then covered both casseroles with a mixture of the cheeses used and a generous amount of Parmesan.
And that's 'bout it.
And that's 'bout it.