10 Levels of Mac & Cheese (Microwave to Michelin) | With Babish

Mac and cheese. One of the most

essential of food products. It ranges

from impossibly simple to impossibly

complex.

Where on that spectrum do you want to

land? I'll show you the way. All you

have to do is hold both my hands, give

me some, and we'll make some pasta with

cheese on it.

[Music]

Hey, what's up guys and welcome back to

Babish. Today we're taking a look at 10

levels of mac and cheese. Starting with

the very easiest. It's even right there

in the name. Uh, wow. They rebranded it.

It's not easy mac anymore. Now it's just

called craft mac and cheese in a cup

that you microwave, but it is the

easiest iteration of mac that I can

imagine.

Step one, remove lid and cheese sauce

pouch. Step two, add water to the fill

line in cup. Stir. Step three, microwave

on high 3 and 1/2 minutes. Step four,

stir in cheese sauce. And that's the

long and short of it. Doesn't say to eat

it, but I trust that that's step five.

I remember this being indistinguishable

from the box stuff. Why is this so

awful? It's so gluey. I put in exactly

the right amount of water. I cooked it

for this right amount of time. I'll add

some water to thin it out. Just give it

the benefit of the doubt. So, Easy Mac,

well, Craft Mac and Cheese Microwave

Edition. Let's see if it's gross.

It's um not terribly good. We have uh

some really overcooked noodles, some

very undercooked noodles. Then the sauce

turned out really gloopy and gelatinous

because of the starches that they add to

the bowl to help the sauce emulsify

without milk. It scratches the Mac itch

if you're a child or a college student.

It's also a form of child, what I would

call borderline acceptable. But then

there's level two,

boxed mac. Not so easy. Still very easy.

Requires cooking utensils and a stove.

[Music]

Step one, boil water in medium saucepan.

Stir in macaroni. Cook 7 to 8 minutes or

until tender. Drain. Do not rinse.

Return to pan. Add margarine or butter.

Milk and cheese sauce. Blue box.

As essential a mac and cheese as there

is, but let's see if it's worth all that

extra effort.

It remains as good to this day as it

ever was. So yeah, it's lost a lot of

that artificial flavor that I really

love. Never mind. They changed the

recipe and it sucks now. It's too light

in color. It should be electric orange

and it should taste like chemicals

masquerading as cheese. Now it just

tastes like

level two. disappointing for unforeseen

reasons, but also Blue Box. Can't hate

Blue Box. I dare you. Level three, Blue

Box dressed up for the first date it's

gone on in years. So, it's pulling out

the pattern tie, the suspenders, the

dress watch, and it's showing off its

tattoos by rolling up the French cuffs.

It's trying way too hard, but it's still

delicious if you just give it a try. So,

to elevate our blue box, first we're

going to make twice as much. That's an

upgrade already.

Oops.

Whoops. It's one of the dumbest things

I've ever done. That was

But instead of adding our butter and

milk straight to the pan, we're going to

heat them up in a separate little

saucepan and we're going to infuse them

with spices. Paprika, dried garlic, and

ground mustard. Get that nice and melty.

Get the pasta cooked. Bring it all

together. and then pour it into a

buttered cast iron casserole. And we're

not stopping there. We're going to

butter up some crushed corn flakes and

sprinkle those over top. Then we're

going to bake it at 375 Fahrenheit for

about 2530 minutes. All right, level

three, dressed up craft. Craft's all

dressed up for dinner.

Man, it tastes homemade. And in the end,

all we did was add spices and corn

flakes. Pretty fantastic result. This is

way better. and very easy upgrade to

craft mac and cheese is to treat it like

real mac and cheese, which it is. You

know what I mean? Level four. And now

we're delving into food hacks. Mixing

three very simple ingredients together.

Will they become something greater than

the sum of their parts? I'll let the

other me find out. We're going to make a

simple cheese sauce out of evaporated

milk. This is milk that has much higher

protein content than normal milk, which

helps something happen. And we're going

to use shredded cheese coated in

cornstarch. Now, you can do this

yourself. Shred some cheese, coat it

with cornstarch. But to make it super

duper easy,

we're going to use pre-shredded cheese,

something I normally never advise using

because it is coated in starch for the

very reason that we seek it out today.

Now, you need to read the back of the

bag because I found, oddly enough, that

there's an inverse relationship to price

and quality. I have here three examples

from across the price and quality

spectrum. Most expensive, of course, is

organic valley. This is $2 more

expensive than these guys, and you're

getting 2 ounces less. That and it is

coated not with starch, but cellulose.

Cellulose is wood pulp. I'm not joking.

It's wood pulp. Cellulose does not bind

proteins together and it will give you a

gritty, clumpy sauce. So, what you want

to look for are plant-based starches.

Tapioca starch, potato starch,

cornstarch. Craft mac and cheese, which

is oddly the middle of the pack for

price, uses only corn starch, which is

great. Cabbitt, which was shockingly

cheaper and one of my favorite cheese

brands because they're all lactosefree,

uses potato starch and tapioca starch,

both also great candidates. So, all we

have to do then is heat up some

evaporated milk. Gently stirring the

cheese and rake in the money. So, I'm

going to pour 12 oz of evaporated milk

into a saucepan. I'm going to heat it

gently over medium medium low heat. Add

my shredded starchcoated cheese. 12 oz

worth. And we're going to gently whisk

the cheese in with the evaporated milk

while heating over low heat until melted

and smooth. Oh my god, it's working. I

mean, I don't want to speak too soon,

but what we have done is changed the

game forever. I'm so blown away. Pour in

our super easy cheese sauce, and we're

going to add a little bit of pasta

cooking water, starting with 1/4 cup,

and adjusting as necessary. Oh, mommy.

Wow, dude. me. Perfect. I don't

believe it. Level four. And holy. Right.

Just kind of made this one up on the

spot here. And it appears to have

worked, I would say, to a ridiculously

well extent. Good extent. I would say

it's worked very well. Look at how

freaking gooey it is. It's so perfectly

smooth and gooey. Just those two things.

This is what Stoers is trying to be.

It's what keeps it up at night.

Sweating, tossing, turning. It's like,

why can't I be like this? Oh my god,

that was the easiest cheese sauce I've

ever made. And it is perfectly smooth

and creamy and gooey. I think we've just

changed the entire world. I think wars

will no longer have to be fought that

might have been fought otherwise. I

think that next up, cure for cancer.

I'm allowed to say that cuz my mom died

of cancer.

Level five, one of my favorite recipes

from America's Test Kitchen. This is a

one pot macaroni and cheese

that really works. And it does that by

using the stabilizers in American

cheese. I'm going to shred this guy. And

we're also going to grate 4 oz of sharp

cheddar. This is going to be our source

of flavor.

Uh, and it's going to integrate

seamlessly into the cheese sauce by

virtue of the shredded yellow American.

Please be careful. It's making me

nervous.

That's fine, Brad. This is my craft. My

craft cheese. We'll be right back.

Does the size of a sauté pan matter?

Yeah, different recipes require

differentiz pans, and this one offers

great utility in the 12 in range. So,

yeah. No, the size of this sauté pen

matters. Absolutely.

Can a small pan still work in some

applications though?

Yeah. Um, a small pan can work in some

applica. I don't really understand your

line of questioning and why you're

giggling while you're asking me. It's a

little offputting.

All right, let's head over to the stove

top where other things are going to

happen. In a medium saucepan, I'm

combining 1 and 1/2 cups of whole milk

with 1 cup of whole water. Cover and

bring it to a rolling simmer. Then we're

going to add 8 ounces of elbow macaroni.

And we're going to cook this until it's

cooked and most of the milk water

mixture has been absorbed. You're going

to want to stir this pasta more

frequently than others because cooking

it in the milk causes it to stick to

itself like a young man discovering his,

you know. Then we're going to kill the

heat and add our American and cheddar

cheese mixture. Damp up the flavor a

little bit. I've got a/4 teaspoon of

cayenne pepper and about a/ teaspoon of

Dijon mustard. Always welcome

ingredients for any mac and cheese that

needs a big hit of flavor. Now that our

cheese sauce is nice and gooey, we're

going to add a melty factor by stirring

in the rest of our shredded cheddar,

mixing until just combined throughout

the pasta, covering and allowing to

melt. If you want to be really, really

fancy, hit it with a little bit of

freshly ground black pepper. And there

you have it. Level five, the first truly

from scratch mac and cheese. Really

beautiful, creamy, smooth sauce.

That's a good sign. Somehow it's

smoother than the evaporated milk sauce.

At least the extra effort rewards you

with something because I was going to

just forever abandon this method for the

for the uh evaporated milk one, but it's

just so smooth and creamy.

The one thing I will say is that the

sauce is not nearly as flavorful because

it's half American cheese, which does

not have much flavor to it. So, it's

always going to be a little blander than

the evaporated milk sauce, and it relies

on mustard to bring more cheesy flavor,

but really, it just kind of tastes like

mustard. So, it's a wonderful, fantastic

option for quick and easy homemade mac

and cheese. But, if I had to pick one,

I'd go evaporated milk. I'd go level

four over level five. And that

is

weird, right? Look, we already did baked

mac and cheese. Wouldn't you rather see

me take that mac and cheese bread and

deep fry it,

skewer it into a tall, erect tower

served in a shallow pool of ranch.

That's what I thought. I didn't hear

your answer, but I assumed it.

And that's what real men do. And there

you have it. Level six mac and cheese.

extra cheese. Breaded, deep fried, and

served in a shallow pool of ranch.

Let's see how it is, though.

That works. The mac and cheese and

ranch. Weird. It works. So, obviously,

this is both easy and heart healthy, but

it did spark a debate here in the

office. Is this a preparation of mac and

cheese, or is this something to do with

mac and cheese? And um I'm here to

settle it. Uh this is a a thing to do

with mac and cheese. And while this of

course is Texas state fair food, it I

mean like Texas state fair food is

delicious. It's it's it's horrible and

it's delicious. Almost forgot in the

traditional preparation. Of course, it

is slathered

with cats up. There we go. Now it's a

feast fit for a kingsized scooter. Level

seven, the mouret level, where we're

actually making a sauce using rue and

mouret and uh bashamel and milk and um

French other French words. There's

there's a lot of whisking. There's

carefulness being exercised

and it's really

great. So, let's talk cheese. I'm going

with 12 oz of different cheeses. Some

bringing meltiness and richness, others

bringing tang, sharpness. We have

different ages, different colors,

different countries of origin. And it

all comes together in the grand melting

pot of mac and cheese melting pot. I

have mostly a mild yellow cheddar. This

is an excellent melter. It's going to

help prevent the sauce from getting

gritty. What makes sauce gritty is more

aged cheeses. I have here some kha which

is how you're actually supposed to

pronounce gura but I know that I'm never

going to get away with that the same way

I would quas you know just be like and

now I've got some kha here everybody's

going to be like the did he just say to

me in my Christian house in front of my

Christian daughter and then for tons of

flavor but high potential of grittiness

so we're not using much of it parmesan

or reana all these need to be fresh

grated and the parmesan in particular

cuz I want it to melt quickly I'm going

to grate finally ly. Look at that

beautiful mix and spread of cheese. Bear

in mind, much in the way the parmesan is

now coating the strands of cheese, you

could absolutely coat this in

cornstarch, tapioca starch, potato

starch, and simply melt it in evaporated

milk. You'd have an cheese sauce that's

way easier and I think a better texture

than the one we're about to make. We'll

be right back after I consider what I'm

doing here.

So, in a medium highwalled sauté pan,

I'm melting 2 tablespoons of butter,

adding an equal part of flour, whisking

to combine into a paste, which we're

then going to cook for 1 to 3 minutes,

just until the raw flour smell

dissipates. Now, we've got two cups,

that's 1 tbsp, butter and flour per cup

of whole milk, which maddeningly, we're

going to stir in one little splash at a

time. And when we do, things are going

to clump up in rather a frightening and

unsavory way. But worry not, because I

know what I'm doing. If you just add it

all at once, it'll clump like this and

not and it'll just be this inside of

your sauce. But if we make sure that

each splash of milk is fully

incorporated into the clumps, eventually

it's going to smooth out. Now, at a

certain point, you're just going to have

a very thick bashamel. And that's the

point when you can start adding more

milk at a time. It's pretty much where

we're at now. And there you have it, a

beautifully smooth bashamel. Now, we're

going to slowly bring this beshmal up to

a very gentle simmer. Then, once we've

cooked it for about 3 minutes, we're

going to kill the heat, stir in our

cheeses, and let the residual heat melt

the cheese into a smooth mouret sauce.

What is moure? Well, metaphorically,

it's an awakening

from sleep into dream.

What?

Right. Well, that's got to be the best

ma I've ever made. Oo, the original mac

and cheese. Much trickier, but lots more

opportunities to build flavor with

different kinds of cheeses.

Something about a mouret sauce, you kind

of can't beat it. Like those other

sauces were creamier and smoother

because they were made from processed

cheese or they were made with starch,

which makes things taste processed.

Tastes like a or has the the mouth feel

of a packet cheese, you know. And this

just feels like a classic mac and cheese

sauce. Yes, it's not as smooth, but it's

flawed in just the right ways to make it

flawless. Being able to build a bashimal

and a mouret sauce are really great

skills to have in your tool skill set

box pocket and definitely worth doing

the next time you're trying to impress

your boss or something.

What do you say to people who say

molecular gastronomy? What is that? To

those of you who don't know what

molecular gastronomy is, it's the

practice of spending lots of money to

create balls and foams that I would say

detract from eating experiences more

than they add to them.

Why do people do that?

Nobody knows. And that's why you pay so

darn much for it. But we're doing

something different. We're only doing

something that is technically molecular

gastronomy. We're using sodium citrate.

Wait, so what is molecular gastronomy?

Technically,

I have noing idea. So sodium citrate is

an athome equivalent to the stabilizer

that they use in American cheese. It's

basically how uh and why American cheese

is such a great melter. So now we can do

the same with not so great melting

cheeses.

That's what we're going to do. First, we

got to grate our cheese. Do not use

pre-shredded cheese for this joint or

I'll kill you.

Just kidding. And then I'm just going to

heat up one cup of milk. Meanwhile, over

here, we're going to ready our blender.

Into the blender, I'm going to measure

about 12 oz of cheese. And I'm going to

add about a/ teaspoon dijon mustard. And

for a big old bite of flavor, some

finely grated Pecarino Romano cheese.

And let's also throw a little bit of

cayenne pepper in there just to show

that we care. And as soon as our milk is

boiling, we're going to build our sauce.

Uh, milk's boiling. So, I'm going to add

this/ teaspoon of sodium citrate

directly to the milk. We're going to

give that a little tiny whisking just to

make sure the sodium citrate's

dissolved. Then, the blender awaits it.

Start on relatively low speed.

and that both should and has actually

yielded an incredibly gooey cheese

sauce. Okay, Kavatapi

with an absolutely foolproof so

foolproof it couldn't even didn't make a

fool of me cheese sauce.

I mean, it's so so easy. Um, it is next

level creamy. It's etheral. It's

bizarre. It's honestly not my favorite.

I I doing this made me realize that I

think I like moure sauce the most. But

your ability to use any cheese and just

bang it hard fast and just do it

instantly in a blender, it's it's it's

it's pretty incredible. It's pretty wild

and it's absolutely worth picking up a a

bag of sodium citrate and keeping it

under your bed next to the Playboy

magazines

just in case

you need some cheese sauce.

So, that's level eight. After the break,

we're going to see what happens when we

add a special secret ingredient. Lots

and lots of money.

[Music]

Level 9 is where we see what happens

when we put a whole lot of money where

our mouth is. And where our mouth is is

on this mac and cheese. So, we're going

to put some money into it. Do you see

what I did there?

No.

It's rare that you put your money where

your mouth is in the context of food.

And frankly, that was extremely clever.

And I came up with it on the fly. And I

think we should just all

recognize that.

Yeah. If we all recognize that

recognition.

Perfect. We're seeing what happens when

we use only the most expensive

ingredients. So for the cheese, not only

did Rachel go to Italy and get the most

expensive cheese at Italy, which is

saying something. This one was $60.99 a

pound. This one was $36.99 a pound. And

then we got the four most expensive

cheeses from my local grocery shop. Each

of which was 27.99 a pound. So by

putting a pound's worth of cheese in

this cheese sauce, we're looking at, you

know, about a 30 $35 cheese sauce

basically depending on how much we use

of each. And that's just the cheese

sauce. I'm just getting started. Babish

Nation. Next up, the pasta. And I love

busiate.

This guy was 12 bucks for this bag. And

uh that's a lot. It's going to be these

long curls. These guys are probably

going to unfurl into these long curls,

which are annoying to eat, which usually

expensive pasta bullseye. We have Senica

milk clocking in at some dollars and

some cents. This is the most expensive

milk we could find. Just trust us. I

have one summer burgundy truffle

clocking in at $40 for this little guy.

We have a lovely lobster tail whose

price cannot be calculated. It's It's

priceless. And then we have this little

whack of butter. This little guy, this

little piece of Italian butter was like

$12. Will these make a difference? These

questions and more answered right now.

Now, the lobster tail I'm going to cut

open, pull out the meat, and gently

butter poach it before adding it to the

mac and cheese.

How do you respond to those who say

adding lobster is cheating?

Has anybody ever said that?

I mean, this person I just made up for

the sake of this question did. Well, I

would say to that person, cheating in

the game of what?

Mac and cheese.

It's a good answer.

Cheating in the game of mac and cheese.

What?

That's a great answer on your part.

Gotcha.

Touche.

I'm going to grate up this cheese. Now,

to build the cheese sauce, instead of

using plain old butter, I'm using this

expensive butter that was used to poach

lobster. So, that you can I do I have to

explain myself? That's a brilliant idea.

I'm going to do tablespoon and a half of

this butter. Add one tablespoon of

flour. Uh this is very very little

amounts of rue, but I'm going to be

using both sodium citrate and rue to

ensure stabilization, but also a nice

classic mac and cheese texture. Now, I'm

going to stream in our very expensive

milk, one little splash at a time,

whisking until fully incorporated before

adding the next. Remember how we talked

about this? You always forget. All

right, here it is. Now I've added the

lobster, the cheese sauce to sort of

heat back through cuz it cooled off. And

once this pasta is done, we're in the

money

because this was expensive. There you

have it. Very expensive mac and cheese.

I'm going to garnish with some finely

minced chives because this is looking

pretty pale. Some freshly cracked black

pepper. And of course, it's just not

expensive unless it's completely drowned

in freshly shaved black truffle. Okay,

there it is. The most expensive mac and

cheese ever conceived. It cost about $60

to make it. Imagine what they would

charge you in a restaurant. Let's see if

it's worth making.

Well, the cheese sauce is delicious and

it is drowning out the truffle and the

lobster. Can't really taste them. This

is such a powerful, sharp, funky sauce.

That's fantastic, but it overpowered

everything else in the orchestra. It

just goes to show you can't throw money

at problems. You can, but there are

diminishing returns. So, throwing money

at the problem didn't solve it. Can we

make technique the star of the show? on

to level 10.

One that I'm not actually entirely sure

what it is yet because at the time of

this recording, I haven't filmed it.

Whatever it is, level 10 better be

really, really good. It's level 10. So,

for this round, I want to try making

pasta. Now, normally homemade pasta plus

mac and cheese equals no. No. Homemade

pasta tends to collapse under the weight

of any significant sauce. So, a thick

gloopy cheese sauce is for sure just

going to take any macaroni we make and

sandwich them, pancake them into

nothingness. So,

I want to try and invent a new kind of

pasta. Is that is that such a big deal?

What I'm going to do is I'm going to try

to make a hybrid between traditional

Italian pasta dough and tukbi. Uh, I

love tukboki and cheese. The, you know,

microwave one, the the easy quick ready

snack version. It's one of my favorite

expressions of mac and cheese. So, can I

make macaroni that has some of the same

chewy bouncy characteristics of tukboki?

So to make our macaroni tukboki or macbo

macboki,

I'm basically just going to incorporate

a couple techi techniques into

traditional pasta making. So first I'm

going to effectively make a tangzong out

of rice flour. Basically I'm going to

pre-hydrate and pre- gelatinize a little

bit of rice flour to add some resilience

and extra chew to the final product. So,

I've got 30 g of rice flour here over

which I'm going to pour 90 g of boiling

water. Mix to combine. This should form

a thick gloopy paste. And then we're

going to let it cool completely before

trying to work it into the dough. So,

now for the primary pasta dough. I've

got 300 g of semolina flour combined

with 90 g of white rice flour, 60 g of

tapioca starch, and 5 g of kosher salt.

Give that a tidy little whisking to make

sure that everything is homogeneous. Now

I'm going to add this cooled rice flour

paste. And I'm actually going to press

it through a fine mesh sie to make sure

that I don't have any lumps. Then I've

got 10 g of neutral oil. This is just

vegetable oil. And two eggs plus one egg

yolk. 120 g of egg all told. Beat that

up. Add it to the bowl. Then I'm going

to affix my dough hook. And I'm just

going to let this knead for a few

minutes until everything is evenly

mixed. Then I'm going to let it rest for

about 20 minutes to make sure that all

the starches and flowers are hydrated so

I have an accurate picture of what kind

of consistency I'm working with here.

It's looking pretty dry and crumbly. I'm

just going to incorporate things by

hand. I have a feeling that once that

hydrates, it's going to be the right

consistency. What I'm going to do is I'm

going to wrap this guy up tightly in

plastic wrap. Let them sit at room

temperature for about 20 minutes until

everything is fully hydrated. All right,

so it's been about 20 minutes and I

think this is good to go. Like it's

fully hydrated. It feels nice and firm,

but not sticky, but not crumbly either.

Let's give it a try. All right, so I

have the small macaroni attachment set

up here. So what you want to do here is

grab little hunks of dough and form them

into balls, which we're going to feed

through the extruder, hopefully creating

perfect MacBookie on our very first try.

That's how life works, right?

[Music]

Okay,

those are macaroni. Last time I checked,

we're making macaroni.

I know I shouldn't be so surprised, but

one of my ideas works, but whatever. I'm

not that smart. Holy cats and dogs. It's

macaroni. Holy macaroni is what what I

meant to say. And there we have it,

folks.

Some maci. So, I'm very curious to see

how this turns out. I'm not going to

commit to it until I've tried some. So,

let's do that. Water's boiling. I'm

going to start with 2 minutes. See where

we end up. Now, conventional wisdom says

soon as they float, they're done. But,

I'm going to go ahead and not do that

cuz they're already floating. Okay,

that's 2 minutes. I'm going to drain,

toss it with a little bit of butter and

pasta water. See what we end up with.

Okay, that's looking creamy and right. I

want to see what kind of strength we're

dealing with here. Really nice. It's not

collapsing at all underweight. That's

great.

Uh oh. It's not al dente. And that al

dente is kind of like a soft exterior

and a chewy almost firm interior. This

is just firm throughout. It's delicious.

So, I set out to invent a new kind of

pasta and I did it on my first try. This

is a very first in my life ever

occurrence kind of thing. I know pride

is a sin, but

I think we have our level 10 mac and

cheese mac. Now we just got to figure

out the cheese. So to start things off,

I'm going to make some parmesan broth.

Combining two cups of chicken stock with

an equal part of water. Then I'm adding

some usual stock suspects. We have a big

bundle of thyme, couple bay leaves,

shallots, a couple cloves of garlic, but

then rather unusually, we are adding

parmesan cheese rind, as many as we can

muster. That's going to simmer for

probably about an hour. And I'm going to

use this as the cooking liquid for my

pasta. And I'm going to insert a little

bit of it into the sauce itself. So,

obviously, one of the things that steps

up mac and cheese is crunch. And I want

to bring crunch in two ways. is in the

form of cheese, in the form of bread.

So, I want to do some homemade

breadrumbs, but not any homemade

breadrumbs. What I want to do is tear

some big sort of like webbby breadcrumbs

from a good baguette. So, I'm going to

hack off that much. Cut it in half.

Okay, look at that. That's exactly what

I'm looking for. I want to get this like

big kind of webbby structure. This is

what I imagine being on top of the mac

and cheese. just these big kind of

honeycombed bits of fried bread. So,

what I'm going to do is I'm going to

tear these out. Then, I'm going to

generously coat them in olive oil. And

then, I'm going to convection bake them

to try and get them nice and evenly

golden brown all over. Don't worry, this

is not going to waste.

So, I have my oven preheating to 375° F

with convection. I'm going to toast it

for probably 10 15 minutes, tossing

every few minutes to make sure it's

very, very even. Now, on to the cheese

sauce. And I kind of want to use a

dizzying array of cheeses. I just do

because I have a fantastic balance of

flavors here. We have kind of a sweet

fudgy vibe with, you know, just a plain

Jane Gouda. We have some sharpness and

some funk coming from some provolone. We

have some extreme cheddar sharpness

coming from this carold Dubliner. We

have some nuttiness and some cave-aged

funk coming from some griier. We have

some sharpness and parmesan-like

characteristics in a much milder form

with manchego. And then we have a great

melter in the form of fontina. Really,

it's seven cheeses with the parmesan

cheese crisps. And that feels like

overkill. And it is overkill, but I want

to try it. So that's what we're going to

do.

All right, let's see how this blend of

cheeses tastes as one cohesive unit.

Delightful. It's got an assertive

flavor, but not too assertive. Like that

plus milk plus pasta, it's going to be

just right. But not just saying that

because I don't have any other cheese

left. Just in the nick of time, our

breadcrumbs are out of the oven. They're

looking fairy tale, just the way that I

wanted them to. They're big, fluffy,

crispy, fantastic. So now onto the

seventh cheese. While my oven is

preheated, I'm going to make a couple of

Parmesan freos

or cheese crisps. So I'm going to grate

this very finely into a nice little

pile. I want it to melt fast. I want the

fat to separate. I want the cheese to

break effectively and then for it to fry

in its own fat, all in short order.

Otherwise, it will just dry out. This

guy's going to head it into our 400°

Fahrenheit oven for we'll see how many

minutes until they are cheese freakos.

To make our cheese sauce, I'm going to

do a pretty simple mouret, but I'm going

to bolster it. A little bit of sodium

citrate. That should make it glossier,

should make it smoother, and make it

more stable. But I want the natural sort

of familiar mouth feel of moure. Sorry,

I said mouth feel. Here come the

freakos.

Nicely golden brown. Okay, 5 yard line.

Let's do this. Oh, I'm nervous. Okay,

over on the stove top, I have my

parmesan broth in which I'm going to

cook our pasta. I have 1 tbsp each

butter and allpurpose flour for the base

of my r. I have 1 cup of whole milk to

which I'm going to add 1/4 teaspoon of

sodium citrate for extra stability.

And I'm going to gently heat. Milk's

nice and warm. Just has to be warm for

the sodium citrate to dissolve. pour it

back into this measuring cup and start

to stream it in.

So now we have our beshmold that's been

fortified with sodium citrate. So as

soon as we've simmerred for about 1 to 2

minutes, I'm going to kill the heat, add

the cheese. I have 227 gram or 8 oz of

our cheese blend and just use the

residual heat in the bashimal and in the

pan to melt the cheese into what should

be a pretty perfect cheese sauce. All

right, here is our maci ready to be

plunged into the boiling water. Give my

mac a taste. See if it's done cooking.

It's only been about 90 seconds. Yep,

it's ready to go. Scoop it out. Add it

to the sauce. I'm not going to drain it

too much cuz I want some of that lovely

cooking, simmering stock. Here we go,

folks. It's time to make our Michelin

Mac. Oh man, look at that. It'sing

picture perfect. Are you kidding me?

Wow. Oh, there you go, you freakos. Then

we've got our giant flaky breadrumbs.

And then our ridiculous chives. And of

course, let's throw some super coarse

FGP right on top. And there you have it,

folks. Level 10 mac and cheese covered

with shards of cheese and bread, herbs,

and in a proprietary broth of seven

cheeses with homemade maci noodles and

parmesan broth. Let's see how it is.

It's still so remarkably creamy. And the

flavors are just wow. the parmesan. You

can taste the Parmesan cheese cris crisp

so distinctly and it's adding such great

texture along with these huge flaky

breadcrumbs and the texture of the mac.

It cannot be overstated how unique and

perfect it is. It's fresh homemade pasta

with a cheese sauce on it that's not

folding under the under the pressure.

It's a first for me. That's it. That is

level 10 time mac and cheese. It is mac

and cheese to a tea. It ticks every box

for what makes mac and cheese. But it is

playful. It is profoundly flavored. It's

perfectly textured.

It's the best mac and cheese I've ever

had in my life. And I made it. That

doesn't make any sense. Thank you very

much for joining me on these 10 levels

of mac and cheese. Please let me know in

the comments below what do you want to

see me explore 10 levels of. What's

next? What should I do? I'm all ears.

This is the new series on the Babish

channel. I'm having so much fun making

it. I can't wait to make more and I

can't wait to show you what we're

working on. Thank you so much for

watching. Thank you for sticking with me

for almost 10 years now. And keep

cooking. I will if you will.

When I'm sad, I often make a blue box

mac and cheese and eat it straight from

the pot standing over the sink.

Why?

It's because it's comforting. It's

something that says, "I want to do what

I want to do right now." There's nothing

wrong with that. It's human nature. Are

you human?

Do you want an honest response?

Yeah. Why? Why would I ask that question

and want a dishonest response? Why

wouldn't you be a human? It was a really

a rhetorical question.

Yeah. Yeah. Why wouldn't I be a human?