New Orleans Mac & Cheese (Veggie ‘Holy Trinity’ & Bucatini Pasta) | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with New Orleans Mac and Cheese. That's right. I'm very excited to show you my version of this, which is not necessarily how they make it there, but rather how I think it should be made there, since I'm going to add a few ingredients that quite frankly, I'm shocked are not already being commonly used. And I think they make this even more special than it already is. And to get started, we will add some diced onions to a little bit of olive oil that we have in a pot set over mediumigh heat. And after tossing in a nice big pinch of salt, we will cook those, stirring for about 2 minutes just to give them a head start before we add our celery and our diced bell pepper. And in New Orleans, these three ingredients are referred to as the Holy Trinity, and they are the aromatic vegetable base for many of the city's most delicious recipes. And what we'll do is continue cooking our Holy Trinity, stirring for another 3 or 4 minutes or so, or until our onions turn translucent, and our pepper and celery just start to soften up. And when I heard there was a thing called New Orleans Mac and Cheese, I was 100% positive the Holy Trinity would be involved. But much to my shock and surprise, it was not. But I am so glad I included them here since I thought they did wonderful things. But anyway, once we're happy with how our vegetables look, we will toss in a generous amount of butter, followed by some smoked paprika, some freshly ground black pepper, a little bit of garlic powder, as well as some ground cumin. And then finally, the rest of our salt. And we'll go ahead and stir all that together and cook this for another minute or so, or until our butter is melted and the spices are fragrant. And that's it. Once we've cooked that stirring for a few minutes, we'll go ahead and toss in our flour. And we'll stir that in and cook that for about 2 minutes to form what's known as a r o x. And once we've cooked the raw edge off that flour and it's kind of toasting and sticking to the bottom of the pot, we'll go ahead and transfer in some cold heavy cream, followed by some whole milk. And once that's in there, we'll take a whisk and we'll give that a thorough mixing. And we will keep mixing until all that rude dissolves in and we can't feel anything still stuck to the bottom of the pan. And then what we'll do is wait for this to come back to a simmer, which is probably going to take a few minutes. And you'll see as your mixture starts to boil, it's going to thicken up. And if everything goes according to plan, it should look something like this. And once it does, we'll reduce our heat to medium low. And we'll let this simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally. And during that time, because we added that paprika and some of my bell peppers were red, this cream sauce is going to take on a beautiful warmer color. And once it does, and this is simmered for about 5 minutes, we'll turn off the heat. And we'll whisk in whatever cheeses we're going to use, which for me is going to be half sharp cheddar and half Monterey Jack. Okay. Apparently mozzarella is also a popular choice, but I'm sorry, I'm just not a big mozzarella fan in mac and cheese. All right. It's all stretch, no flavor. But anyway, use what you want. I mean, you are after all the dochi of how this should be. Oh, and by the way, we're only adding 75% of the cheese at this point since we want to reserve 25% for the top. And that's it. As soon as that cheese melts in, our sauce is done. And we'll simply reserve that until our pasta is cooked. And while spaghetti is by far the most popular choice for New Orleans mac and cheese, I personally think bukatini is a much better choice. And from what I hear, the original choice of the Italian immigrants who inspired this amazing variation on an American classic. And since the pasta is hollow, it does an amazing job of soaking in the sauce. But no matter which you use, we're going to boil that in salted water until it's just barely cooked. Right. This package said cook at 9 to 11 minutes. So I set my timer for 8 and 1/2. And that's going to be just about perfect considering we're going to bake this in the oven for about a half hour. And that's it. Once our pasta is cooked, we will drain that very well and we'll go ahead and transfer that into a casserole dish. And then before it gets too sticky and hard to move, we'll grab our tongs and we will quickly distribute that as evenly as possible. But we don't have to get it perfect yet because we're going to do this again once our sauce has been poured over, which I'm going to do with a ladle, even though you could probably just pour everything over the top. But my theory is by ladelling this, I'm going to get better distribution of that Holy Trinity, which may or may not make any difference. But I've always enjoyed a good ladelling. So just dump it all on at once if you want. But this is how I did it. And once that was finally accomplished, I grabbed my tongs and I gave that bukatini the old sha sha to help settle that sauce down in. And we'll also try to make sure that pasta's been distributed as uniformly as possible. And then once we're finally done fussing around, we'll go ahead and sprinkle over the rest of our cheese. And then if you want, you could add the traditional breadcrumb topping to this, but I decided not to. All right. It didn't look like most versions used one. And since I had already made a couple other major changes, I did not want to attempt fate. Although, after the cheese was down, I did sprinkle the top with cayenne. So, I guess this technically counts as a topping. But in any event, once we're done, this is now ready to transfer into the upper center of a 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes or so, or until our top is golden brown and our sauce is bubbling around the edge. And yes, this does look amazing. And you really want to start eating right now. But do yourself and everybody else a favor and hang tight for about 10 minutes so this has a chance to set up texturally and cool down just a touch. And while I waited, I garnished with some chives since I had some in the garden. And after letting this cool for about 10 minutes, I grabbed a spatula and cut out a piece. And I went ahead and served that up. And that, my friends, was every bit as good as it looks and every bit as delicious as you would think. All right, forget about my controversial inclusion of the Holy Trinity in those Cajun spices. Or as they're called in Cajun country spices, or even without those additions, this is a beautifully creamy, just decadent enough worldass mac and cheese. And you might not think that using a long noodle like spaghetti or bukatini would make that big of a difference compared to like an elbow macaroni, but it really, really does. So, to summarize, I absolutely loved how this came out. And I think that Holy Trinity vegetable component we added along with that little touch of spice really did elevate things. And I'll just say this one more time, I'm really not sure why it's not already being added. And if you know the reason, maybe leave it in the comments. But anyway, if you're looking for a new and I think very exciting addition to your mac and cheese recipe rotation, I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And is always in joy.