Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophe. I’m your host with the most, Jon O’Guin, and sorry we didn’t have any posts last week! We took Monday off for Labor Day (Jon loves Unions: the Union Pacific, The Union Jack, all of them), and then Thursday we ended up getting knocked on our ass by a three-way tag-team combination of re-acclimating to being in a house with a cat, and the air outside devolving to Silent-Hill quality, and attempting to broach a complicated and grandiose topic for our 100th Quick Tip. We were, in NO way, hiding from angered Indians offended by our stumbling discussion of chutneys. As such, we want to cover a dish you can make in your own home very quickly, easily, and quite probably with things you’ve already got around the house (well, with one or two flourishes), in order to help everyone stay inside. So we’re making Skillet Mac and Cheese, with Broccoli, and if you want to get straight to the recipe, here’s a link, while the rest of us can…try and break this down. 

Out of the Oven, into the Frying Pan

I have to confess, as I feel I’ve been doing more often in the last year or so, that I don’t really have a solid “grip” on this dish. This particular batch falls into the “oh dear, there’s SO MUCH to talk about” paradigm, where I don’t know which of the many aspects of Macaroni to focus on. Like, at the most tangential, there’s the classic “I know what the lyrics to Yankee Doodle Dandy ACTUALLY MEAN” angle: It’s an insult. Yankee Doodle Dandy was a BRITISH song, calling us Americans backwoods hicks and rubes. Literally every word in the title is (or, was) an insult: Yankee, as best as history can tell, was originally a term used to refer to the Dutch immigrants in what are now New York and Connecticut, (Based on the Dutch name Janneke, (the Dutch version of “Johnny”) pronounced “Yawn-eh-keh”, which we then shortened to “Yahn-kee” and “Yayn-kee”. The FIRST appearance of it in print Is “[P]roceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing ( a nautical term meaning “tilting left and right”) like a Dutch yanky."  Doodle derives from German, meaning either “Idiot” or “one who plays music badly”, and Dandies are self-important fops who weren’t rich or important enough to be nobles, but had too much free-time and money to have a real job. “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, translated to a modern era is “Rambling, Stupid Trust-Fund Chad”.

I was going to say “Mansplaining”, but really, it’s just implicit at this juncture.

 And the end of the first verse doubles down on that: Macaroni was a type of fancy wig* popular in the 1760s and 70s, and the word became the new term for people or things that were cool, fashionable and daring. The best comparison I’ve found for “stuck a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni” is from Tumblr where someone compared it to “Drew a G on his belt and claimed that it was Gucci”, which a great modern analogy, and basically fits the meter of the song. (well, actually, I changed the quote to make it fit the meter, but the base idea was from…toastpotent)

We later, in classic American fashion, took what was meant to be an insult, and used it to compliment ourselves. We actually do this a lot. For a semi-recent example, did you know the phrase “American Exceptionalism” was coined by STALIN, as an insult for American communists, who wrote a concerned letter to him saying “Look, we believe in Marx’s theories, but it’s 1927, and American capitalism just hasn’t stopped getting stronger, with no end in sight. It doesn’t look like we’re going to have a depression any time soon. We’re worried that something makes the American capitalist system special, so that it will never fully breakdown, revealing to the people how they’ve been exploited and motivating them to systemic change, like it does everywhere else.” Stalin wrote back, basically “Why the fuck do you Americans ALWAYS THINK you’re the exception to historical precedent? The laws of economics are universal, and your extreme capitalism is going to collapse, like it always does. Stop being babies and work harder.” A series of statements that are hilarious in the short-term given that Stalin’s response came in 1929, a few months before the Great Depression, and kind of tragic in the long-term, since it was the very failure of the US to adopt European-style socialized systems that led to the Republican party stealing the phrase to use as a compliment…with decidedly mixed results, as the modern era evinces.

You know it was the 20’s, because someone thought to themselves, “I’ll write a letter to Stalin about our problems” and expected SYMPATHY. Joseph “I will let my own son die rather than look weak” Stalin.
Joseph “This used to be a picture of THREE people, until I deleted two of them” Stalin.

See what I mean? There’s SO MUCH to talk about.  Like, I have to double back to that asterisk two paragraphs ago, because it actually brings us back on topic. The REASON that fancy wigs were called “macaroni” is because of the pasta: Back in “the Day” (roughly 1650’s to 1850’s) there was something called “the Grand Tour”, where, basically, once you reached manhood/finished your education, if you were wealthy enough, it was expected you would go on a “Grand Tour” of Europe, in order to really SEE the things you’d learned about: the artifacts and art of the Renaissance, and Ancient Rome, and the cultured salons and art of France, etc. Very much the kind of idea that nowadays gets tied up in the “spending a year abroad after college” in America. It was a thing the wealthy thought you SHOULD do, in order to broaden your horizons, get some actual practice with your French/Italian/Latin with native speakers, make some connections in other countries, etc. But, after a hundred years or so, it was also kind of seen as a pretentious thing rich people did: they all went to the same places, so no one was really LEARNING anything new, they were just wandering through the equivalent of the tourist traps of the regions.

This came to a head In the 1750’s/60’s: a lot of young men, coming back to London, were affecting the more flamboyant styles of Italy and France, where the pasta Macaroni was having something of a heyday, PROBABLY due to new mechanical inventions allowing easier production of the distinctive little tubes, while the machines hadn’t yet been shipped to England, meaning the pasta was relatively unknown there. These young rich boys were called “the Macaroni club”, then “the Macaronis”, because they used the dish as a sort of calling card: you could only be “in the club” if you’d eaten Macaroni in Rome, and used the foreign word as a in-joke/label for things they thought were cool or interesting, like “that new play is so macaroni.” And so the wigs and fashion they wore were ALSO called “Macaroni”.The pasta names the group, who names the fashion.

I will agree that the hat on top of the wig is utterly absurd.

But it wasn’t just the teens and tweens of England getting into foreign pasta. In 1780, Minister to France Thomas Jefferson discovered Macaroni, and became OBSESSED. When he returned to America, he had the Ambassador buy and ship a Macaroni-making machine from Paris, which Jefferson then decided WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH, so he just had regular shipments of imported pasta and Parmesan to make the dish in America, even serving it at a White House dinner in 1802 (the same year he served French Fries for the first time in America).

So Macaroni has a BIG history. But what, exactly, is it, and will I ever get around to COOKING THE DAMN THING?

Making Maccas

FINE. I’ll cook some pasta; which, as my LAST aside,  is kind of what macaroni means: while in America, we tend to use the term to refer to elbow macaroni, the bent, tubular pasta, in Italy, the term is…looser, “Maccheroni” can be applied to basically any tubular pasta corta (short pasta) such as penne or rigatoni…and several dishes made with LONG pasta like spaghetti ALSO use the word maccheroni, despite not using the right kind of pasta. This probably is because the word’s history/meaning is pretty vague: Most historians assert the name comes from Greek Macaria, referring to a rice dish or barley broth served at funerals, while some trace it to the Italian verb maccare, which means “to crush/pound”. (Like how “pasta” comes from the same word as “paste”). Either’s believable, or it could have easily been one of those things where people forget why they call a dish a specific name, and accidentally switch meanings. It’s entirely possible the term originally only referred to dishes served at funerals, but over time, became a sort of stand-in term for regional pasta varieties. The word itself has actually become the default word FOR Pasta in several languages.

Alright, enough stalling. Hold on while I actually cook this.

That took a little longer than I think it should have, but I blame my old stove. FIRST things first, you need some mise en place: specifically, you need to shred a POUND OF CHEESE.

Prepare yourselves for CHEESE.

That’s 50% Monterey Jack, and 50% Cheddar. It’s a pretty common mix for Mac, since Cheddar has a stronger cheesy flavor, but Monterey Jack melts better, so mixing the two gets gooiness AND flavor. You will also need to cut up 12 ounces of broccoli. Why are we adding Broccoli to this Mac and Cheese? Well, as I just noted, there’s a POUND OF CHEESE in it, so we had to do SOMETHING to make it vaguely healthy. Also, think about it: a TON of people pour cheese sauce over steamed broccoli. Why not just save a step and add some fiber and vitamins to your mac?

You’ll want your broccoli trimmed to about 1” chunks/piece. I mostly just tore the florets off the main stalk, trimmed long sections, and cut big florets in half, because I didn’t think that it was going to be all that important that they’re all EXACTLY 1” or smaller. (You hear that, kids? It’s the FORESHADOWING pipe organ! I wonder why it’s playing!)

The next step is what made everything go wrong, and take too long, which is amazing, because it’s arguably the easiest one: bring water, evaporated milk, and a little salt to a simmer.

I took a picture of the only ingredient in that list that was visually even KIND OF interesting.
The THICK milk.

This particular mac and Cheese is a one-pot, no-dump operation, hence the Evaporated milk: while traditional mac and Cheese is made using a cheese-infused Mornay sauce, you can’t cook pasta in Bechamel. …Probably. (Definitely. There’s just straight up not enough liquid in Bechamel to be absorbed into the pasta to soften it).  So one-pot recipes (that aren’t pre-made powdered mix) rely on Evaporated milk to form the emulsifying agent, and bring creaminess to the sauce.  

My problem was that A: I have an old stove, so “wait for this to come to a simmer” was taking what felt like a long-ass time. It’s probably that I didn’t turn the stove high enough, but I get…tetchy, when cooking dairy. One too many sauces ruined by scalding the dairy. Eventually, there was a bunch of steam rolling off of the pan, and I figured “this is probably correct, and if it isn’t, I’ll just cook it an extra minute or two!” So I dumped in 12 ounces of elbow macaroni.

Measuring the pasta was like, the 3rd ‘hardest’ task.

That doesn’t use a whole box, which is GREAT, because in the next week or two, I NEED an extra portion of macaroni, for a Starch-riddled dish that I have planned, so hold onto your spare macaroni for that. (Or, you know, do whatever you want with it. It’s your pasta.) Cook for 3-5 minutes: this isn’t long enough to finish the macaroni, you just want to give it a bit of time before you add the broccoli in to cook around 3-5 minutes too. And…does that look right to you?

Oh shit, the broccoli’s quite large! IF ONLY WE HAD HEEDED THE FORESHADOWING ORGAN!

Actually, the broccoli ended up being fine in terms of proportions, the problem was that the slightly larger chunks meant that I wanted the full 5 minutes of simmer…and about 3 minutes in, I discovered my pasta was done. So I ended up with slightly over-cooked pasta, and slightly under-cooked broccoli. (The florets themselves were fine, it was the stalk segments that were still just a little TOO crisp). So next time I make this, I’ll just have to trust myself, and add the broccoli sooner.

Once the broccoli is mostly cooked, it’s time for some slurs. SLURRY. I DEFINITELY said Slurry. Specifically, a spicy slurry: you’ll want ¼ cup (ish) of Evaporated Milk, 2 teaspoons hot sauce, and 1 teaspoon cornstarch. The Cornstarch is to make the sauce a little thicker, and a little more clingy to the pasta, and you mix it with evaporated milk before pouring it in so it doesn’t clump in the mix, and so it can get stirred into the mix more easily. The hot sauce is because, in case you forgot, there’s about to be A POUND OF CHEESE added to the sauce, and adding a little spiciness helps cut down what might otherwise been too rich/fatty a meal. (this is why cayenne and dry mustard get added to a LOT of mac-and-cheese recipes: just a pinch makes it feel a lot more balanced.)

While this is a great visualization of the ingredients in the slurry, it’s a terrible thing to do. I should DEFINITELY already be stirring, before the bottom clumps.

Stir the slurry together, then pour it in, toss everything, and let it cook down for about a minute, before taking it off the heat, and adding A POUND OF CHEESE. You add the cheese off the heat so it doesn’t breakdown or clump on the bottom while stirring to combine. After…about 3 minutes of mixing, hit it with some salt and pepper, and it’s done!

Turns out adding cheese adds a lot of color to your cheese sauce.

The result is…interesting. As noted, my textures were a little off: the noodles a little soft, the broccoli a little firm, but they weren’t disgustingly bad. The really weird/interesting thing was the sauce. You could, ungenerously, call it “weak”, but after a couple bites, I think “subtle” is a better term. There was a strange almost flour-y quality to it (which is probably starch from the pasta water) but the big thing I felt was that it wasn’t STRONG enough. But I suppose that’s something of a bias: my family almost exclusively makes mac-and-cheese from the blue box, and when we go bigger, it’s the full “4 cheese sauce with a bread-crumb topping” oven thing. To use a very Grand-Tour-y comparison, it’s like the difference between Derain’s 1906 painting of the Charing Cross Bridge, and Monet’s 1899 one: I’m USED to big bold colors and dominating additions, while this one was calmer and quieter. While I can’t say I loved it, I did enjoy what I got from it for how little I put in: shred some cheese, cut some broccoli, and the rest is mostly stirring and waiting. If you had some grilled chicken breast, you could toss it in for a even more “legitimate” feeling dinner option.

THURSDAY: I WAS GOING TO DO A PIECE ABOUT NOT COOKING, BUT I ALSO JUST LEARNED A REALLY FASCINATING STORY IN THE RESEARCH FOR TODAY, SO I DON’T KNOW.

MONDAY: I THINK IT’S GOING TO BE STARCH-ON-STARCH-ON-STARCH, TO USE UP THAT MACARONI, BUT IT DEPENDS ON SOME SHIPPING TIMES.

Recipe

Skillet Mac and Cheese, with Broccoli

Serves 4-5

Ingredients

3 ¾ cup water

1 12 oz can evaporated milk

½ tsp salt

12 ounces elbow macaroni

12 ounces broccoli, chopped into 1” chunks

2 teaspoons hot sauce (preferably cayenne-based)

1 teaspoon cornstarch

8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

8 ounces jack cheese, shredded

Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. In a large skillet, stir the water, 10 ounces of the evaporated milk, and the salt together, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. While heating, if necessary, shred cheese and chop broccoli. Once simmering, add macaroni, and cook, stirring often, for 3-5 minutes. Add the broccoli, and continue cooking for another 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently. (the more you stir the pasta as it cooks, the more starch is beaten into the water.)

2. Stir together remaining 2 ounces of evaporated milk, hot sauce, and cornstarch in a separate bowl, before adding to the skillet. Return to a simmer, and allow to reduce slightly for 1-2 minutes. Remove from the heat, and add the cheeses, stirring thoroughly to melt and combine. Season to taste, and serve.