Ina Garten-Inspired Lobster Mac n Cheese
A baked macaroni that came out dry, with bloated pasta and no visible sauce, was made with pasta that was already done when it went in.
Pasta does not stop absorbing liquid when it leaves the water. Twenty-five minutes in a hot oven surrounded by cheese sauce is a second cooking, and pasta boiled to al dente arrives at the table swollen and soft, having drunk the sauce you made. Boil it two minutes short of the packet time — genuinely chalky in the centre — and it finishes in the oven at exactly the right point, with the sauce still a sauce.
Make the sauce looser than seems right, too. It tightens as it bakes.
Jump to the recipe ↓Ina Garten-Inspired Lobster Mac n Cheese
Serves 6 · Main
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total
- 55 min
Involved8 steps, 11 ingredients, a technique that commonly fails
Ingredients
- 500 g macaroni
- 600 g cooked lobster meat, in large chunks
- 6 tbsp butter
- 6 tbsp plain flour
- 1 litre whole milk, warmed
- 250 g Gruyère, grated from the block
- 200 g mature cheddar, grated from the block
- 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp kosher salt, black pepper
- 80 g panko breadcrumbs, tossed with 2 tbsp melted butter
Method
- Heat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan).
- Boil the macaroni short of the packet time. Drain.2 minutes
- Melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook.2 minutes
- Whisk the warm milk in gradually. Simmer to a loose sauce — looser than you want it to finish.
- Add nutmeg, mustard, salt and pepper.
- Off the heat, stir in the cheeses a handful at a time.
- Fold in the pasta, then fold the lobster through last.
- Tip into a dish, scatter the buttered panko, and bake only, until browned on top.15 minutes
The lobster goes in at the very end
Lobster you buy is already cooked. Every additional minute of heat tightens the protein, and by the end of a full bake it is rubber. Fold it through the sauced pasta just before it goes in the dish, and keep the bake short — fifteen minutes to brown the top, not thirty to heat the middle.
Off the heat before the cheese
A cheese sauce splits above about 70°C: the proteins tighten into strands and the fat runs out as grease. Pull the béchamel off the hob, wait half a minute, then add the cheese in handfuls. Grate it from the block — bagged shreds are coated in starch that keeps them from melting cleanly.
Salt the pasta water properly
The macaroni is the bulk of the dish and it is the only chance you get to season it from the inside. The water should taste of the sea. Unsalted pasta under a seasoned sauce reads as bland however much salt is in the béchamel.
Storing
Three days. It reheats better than most baked pasta if you add a splash of milk and cover it — 170°C for 20 minutes. Freezing turns the sauce grainy.
Questions people ask
Why is my baked mac and cheese dry?
The pasta was fully cooked before baking and absorbed the sauce. Undercook it by two minutes.
When do I add the lobster?
Last, just before baking, and keep the bake to fifteen minutes. It is already cooked.
Can I use frozen lobster?
Yes, thawed and drained well. Pat it dry or it waters down the sauce.
Why did the sauce go grainy?
It was too hot when the cheese went in, or the cheese was pre-grated.
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