Mac and cheese ‘won’t be stodgy’ when you follow Michelin-star method

If you’re a fan of macaroni cheese but struggle to avoid it becoming “stodgy”, you may wish to follow a recipe detailed by Jack Croft, who co-runs a series of restaurants alongside his business partner, Will Murray.

“Most mac and cheese is stodgy, dense and one-dimensional,” he explained in a YouTube video. “But this version from a three-Michelin-star chef solves all those issues.”

That award-winning chef is TV personality, Heston Blumenthal, who is regarded as as a pioneer of multi-sensory cooking. Jack began by placing dry macaroni pasta into a pan, adding water and lightly salting it. “We’re just going to cook this until it’s parboiled,” he continued.

Next, Jack added a “really nice depth” of chicken stock – something he described as “classic Heston” – before infusing it with rosemary, a small amount of thyme and black peppercorns for around 25 minutes. “The macaroni has only been on the boil for around five minutes and at this point you should pass this off [sieve] and place it back into the pan and then add just a touch of olive oil,” he added.

Jack continued, noting that the next stage is to “reduce our white wine – any sort of white wine will do”. He elaborated: “Continue to reduce it until you have something that’s a little bit sweet and a little bit acidic – and that will help balance out the mac and cheese.”

As for the cheese, Jack is an advocate for Gruyère, a hard Swiss cheese that adds a slight saltiness to the recipe. “I prefer to use this over cheddar because you can get a bit more meltiness,” he explained as he grated it.

Jack also opted for slices of American cheese, and cream cheese, which should be mixed in at the end of the process. “It’s a really nice hack – rather than using Béchamel sauce – the cream cheese has a really nice acidity,” he said. “And that kind of cuts through all the fat from this cheese as well.”

The cheese should then be mixed with cornflour in order to thicken the sauce, providing a “more velvety” texture. By now, the stock should be nice and warm, Jack went on before bringing it back up to around 80C and pointing out that it doesn’t need to be boiling.

“Then add the cheese to the pan and you will see it slowly starts to thicken,” he added. “You can already see the gloss and the sheen that you get from cornflour.”

Continuing to cook the cornflour out with a “very gentle heat”, Jack stirred the mixture for five minutes. “Whilst that’s cooking, put just a little bit of butter in there, a little bit of sage and some thyme – and we’re just going to toast some panko breadcrumbs,” Jack went on.

He then removed a small portion of the sauce and replaced it with the cream cheese. “Skipping this stage will result in lots of little micro lumps,” Jack warned. “I always like to add a little bit of Dijon as it really nicely balances out the mac and cheese.”

This should then be added back slowly in stages into the sauce base. “Before we check and adjust the seasoning of the sauce, it’s always a good idea to add the sauce to the pasta first, which has already been seasoned slightly,” Jack said.

He continued: “Then we just bring the whole thing together – we almost want it to be over-moist at this stage because it will definitely thicken up as the starch in the pasta continues to cook.”

But as one final “trick”, Jack added more “little dices” of the Gruyère. Once ready, he poured everything into a dish, sprinkled on a little extra salt, before baking at 180C for 15 to 20 minutes. “It should be loose enough for the sauce to bubble,” Jack closed. “And there it is – you can taste all the herbs, a nice bit of acidity, it’s nice and sweet and although it’s a slightly different technique, it takes about the same amount of time as making a normal mac and cheese.”