Baked Mac & Cheese with White Truffles & Mushrooms + GIVEAWAY!

Baked Mac & Cheese with White Truffles & Mushrooms

My son loves Mac & Cheese and every Thanksgiving it has to be at the table.  Not just any Mac & Cheese though, something extraordinary!  For years now he’s been bringing in Flemings Mac & Cheese.  It has a smokey flavor and while I have their recipe, he insists on ordering it so I have one less thing to do in the kitchen.  Although, I think he’s afraid mine may not taste the same as theirs. That’s fine – whatever makes my family happy! 

This year I thought I’d start thinking ahead and prepare various mac & cheese recipes to see if any of them could take the place of Flemings.  A bowl of the stuff runs $50 – for noodles, cheese and cream. Crazy, but he loves it.

The grocery store I frequent had these vacuum packed cans of White Truffles and Porcini Mushrooms.  One of the chefs there told me the company Urbani Truffles has a to “die for” recipe for Mac & Cheese that she shared with me.  I purchased the can and have had it sitting in my pantry for months, and spotted it while searching for my Caribbean dinner.

I decided to pull out that recipe and give it a go this week to see how it tasted.

If you love truffles you’ll love this.  However, even though I followed the recipe to a “T” it was written with American (Imperial) measurements.  So when it called for 2 cups of shredded cheese – depending on the softness, size grate of the cheese, and how you pack it, could make a HUGE difference on the outcome of this dish.

The recipe calls for a total of 5 1/4 cups of cheese.  I’d say that should be gooey enough, not to mention a heart attack waiting to happen!  However, even though the flavor was scrumptious it didn’t seem cheesy enough.  I’m certain had I weighed out the ingredients ( European Metrics) this dish would have been spot on, a ooey and gooey mac & cheese.

I firmly believe that it’s inevitable before the U.S. switches over to European metric conversions.  As challenging as it will be to learn, cooking will be so much easier if the standards for measurements become global.  For instance:  A  recipe that calls for a large onion is left to interpretation, however, if it’s weighed out, there’s no room for guessing.  The same goes for shredded cheeses,  or a pitch of this and that, etc.

From this day forward I’m going to attempt to start posting both American (Imperial) measurements and European Metrics in the recipes on my blog posts.  Hopefully, in the near future the world will have a universal system for measuring ingredients.  Wouldn’t that be great?

In an effort to help you get started as well, I’m giving away the Salter Aquatronic Electronic Scale – the same scale I use.

Salter Aquatronic Electronic Scale

Stop back for more on measurements in cooking in my next post.

In the meantime, enjoy this recipe for Baked Mac & Cheese with White Truffles & Mushrooms below, and don’t forget to enter my giveaway!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Baked Mac & Cheese with White Truffles & Mushrooms

Baked Mac & Cheese with White Truffles & Mushrooms

A luscious twist on Mac & Cheese!

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound (454 grams) Elbow Macaroni
  • 4 cups (946 ml) whole milk
  • 4 Tbsp. (60 ml) unsalted butter
  • 4 Tbsp. (60 ml) all-purpose flour
  • 3 cups (710 ml) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
  • 2 cups (473 ml) shredded Fontina cheese
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • 1 can Urbani White Truffle and Mushrooms
  • 1/4 cup (60 ml) chopped flat-leaf parsley (optional)
  • 1 cup (237 ml) panko breadcrumbs
  • 1/2 cup (118 ml) grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

 

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees Celsius) and coat a large rectangular baking dish with non-stick spray.
  2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add pasta.  Cook according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
  3. In a small saucepan warm milk over low heat.
  4. Melt butter in a medium saucepan and add flour all at once, whisking constantly for 1 minute.
  5. Whisking constantly, slowly pour warm milk into butter/flour mixture.  Continue to whisk for approximately 2-3 minutes, until sauce is slightly thickened.
  6. Add shredded cheeses into pot and stir until melted.  Add 1 can of White Truffle & Mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper.
  7. Add reserved pasta and parsley into cheese sauce and stir until well combined.
  8. Pour pasta into greased baking dish, sprinkle with Panko breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan cheese, and bake for approximately 30-35 minutes, until golden brown.

Enjoy!!!

 

Urbani Truffles

 

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22 comments

  1. What a fun and gourmet twist on Mac Cheese. I bet your son loved this version.

  2. Wow, what a terrific upscale mac and cheese! Great giveaway, too!!!

  3. What a great mac ‘n cheese! This must have sooo much flavor! I actually weigh a lot of things in the kitchen, and grated cheese is one I almost weigh — it can vary so much in volume. So it’s a great idea to supply both volume and weight measures. Good stuff — thanks.

  4. I’m a current email subscriber.

  5. I’m old school when it comes to measurements ….no metrics please.

  6. Must tastes good with those truffles…mhh

    ela h.

  7. A refined mac and cheese! It must be extremely delicious.

  8. How could your son resist this mac and cheese, it sounds delicious.

  9. Love the mac and cheese recipe. Sounds delicious. I’m all for standardizing measurements.

  10. I’m a subscriber!

  11. I couldn’t resist a flavorful mac n cheese like this! The truffle flavor and mushroom sound so delicious and the mac so cheesy and good. What a great idea to add the metric conversions to recipes. There are so many international readers that will greatly appreciate this.

  12. Looks wonderful Vicky! – what a lovely treat I bet your son loved it!
    mary

  13. Looks delicious Vicky! Definitely not your ordinary mac and cheese…yum!

  14. mac and cheese with white truffles??? Are you kidding. This is insane and top notch. You just kicked the original mac and cheese in the butt:) LOL!

  15. My family loves mac and cheese too. I bet they would love this recipe. Sounds amazing.

  16. This recipe sounds like a winner also! My son loves lobster mac & cheese, but will have to try this for him.

    Metric is so much easier – especially when calculating recipe multiples. Yes, go for it, if not too much trouble, add the metric mesurements!

  17. I subscribe at susitravl at gmail dot com

  18. Oh how I fight with the measurement thing. Until I started my blog I NEVER measured or weighed. That’s probably why I’m not a good baker. 🙂 It’s quite a challenge to me to write my recipes because I have to slow down and measure and even then, somethings it doesn’t matter if the onion is an 8 ounce or 10 ounce onion. Just throw the whole thing in there. 🙂 However, when making jam, the outcome is better when you weight the ingredients. Now for the mac & cheese – I do love truffles and I do love gooey so this recipes sounds pretty awesome to me!

  19. Wow, thank you so much, Vicki! I am thrilled to be the winner. I was shopping for a kitchen scale and I know this Salter one will be great. Thanks so much for this giveaway! Lovelovelove your blog, thoughts, videos and recipes 🙂

  20. Got the scale, thanks again! It’s beautiful in my kitchen – and since it weighs up to 11 lbs, I can also use it to weigh small packages for mailing.

  21. I’m glad you like it Maria. I bet you could use it to weight out the metals you use to create those stunning jewels you create!

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