Mac-Less Mac ‘n’ Cheese
Chefs have been playing around with macaroni and cheese a lot in the last few years. It seems to be one of those comfort foods that became acceptable in fine-dining restaurants post-9/11.
Here’s a new take I just heard of, from Eli Kirshtein, one of the contestants on last season’s Top Chef.
Sure, he changes the cheese, using mascarpone and fontina—which I might like but my kids would not.
More radical, though, is that Eli doesn’t use pasta. He uses couscous.
That sounds really weird until you notice that he calls for Israeli couscous, which is actually a wheat-based baked pasta that is pearl-shaped and much bigger than the granular semolina that we call regular couscous.
Apparently, he developed this for Solo NYC, a restaurant where he’s a guest chef. And it got passed along in a press release as a Passover recipe.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I have to say it sound awfully interesting. And it looks so rich that people may not care if it’s pasta or couscous hiding under the cheese.
Mac and Cheese
· 2 cups Israeli couscous
· 2 cups heavy cream
· 1/2 cup fontina cheese
· 1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
· Salt and black pepper, to taste
Cook the couscous like pasta, chill and hold. Reduce the cream by half. Melt the mascarpone and half of the fontina cheese into the cream. Season with salt and pepper, to personal taste. Combine the cous cous with the cream and cheese mixture. Put into a casserole and cover with the remaining fontina cheese. Bake in a 400 degree oven until hot and browned on top. Serve immediately.
