Mac & Cheese w/ Buttermilk Biscuits

Mac & Cheese and Buttermilk Biscuits

I’ve been wanting to try some Mac & Cheese on the Grill for a while now and a couple of folks had told me to try the version in The Big Green Egg Cookbook. It looked interesting because it had 5 cheeses and used, of all things, 2 teaspoons of Tabasco sauce. The other thing I wanted to do was revisit the Buttermilk Biscuits I made last weekend, also from The BGE Cookbook. I had a problem with the consistency of the dough and couldn’t roll it out and cut it out with a cookie cutter. I had to hand form it and it was a sticky mess. I am not sure why I didn’t just try to adjust the mixture by adding more dough. Doh! This week it was also a sticky mess and all it took was a little more dough and all was well. Onto the pictures:



I already posted prep pix on this a week ago, so let’s pick up at the batter for the buttermilk biscuits. It had the same too wet and sticky consistency, all it took was a little more dough to get it workable.




This time around I was able to use cookie cutters, not my hands, to form them.




The biscuits are all cut out and ready to go on the Egg which has been preheated to 450 degrees and the Platesetter is installed legs down.




The biscuits are done after 22 minutes on the Egg. Problem solved.




While the biscuits were baking I made the pasta and did some hunting and gathering for the ingredients for the Mac & Cheese. Besides the pasta there was: All-purpose flour, butter, dry mustard, heavy cream, whole milk, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, salt & pepper, plus cheddar , mozzarella, gruyere, fontina & parmesan-reggiano cheese.




The topping used: Panko, melted butter & paparika.




I’ve got two pans of butter melting on the stove. One for the Mac & Cheese and one for the topping.




The topping is finished




The butter for the Mac & Cheese had the flour added for a quick two minute roux.




The dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce,Tabasco, salt & pepper are added and get stirred constantly for 3 minutes.




Next the heavy cream and milk are slowly added & the mixture gets stirred constantly for around 10 minutes until it almost comes to a boil.




Just before the mx boiled the pan was pulled off the store. Here it is on a trivet & the 5 cheeses get mixed in.




The cheese has been mixed in & is melted.




The pasta has been added & folded in and the mix has been poured into the BGE Dutch oven.




The topping has been added & it is time to head out to the Egg which has been preheated to 350.




When I say the temperature control on the Egg is very precise and even more so than my gas grill, I really mean it. I am a total newbie and I am easily able to hit my target temps-here it was 350. The biggest challenge I had was learning where the dampers needed to be for a given temperature range. A few cooks & I now have a decent feeling for that.




The Mac & Cheese is done after cooking for 30 minutes.




The Mac & Cheese rests for 10 minutes & I served it right out of the Dutch oven sitting on a trivet. It is joined by the buttermilk biscuits.




Mmmmm. One thing about the 10 minute rest is it gave me time to take as many pictures as I wanted. When 10 minutes was up I was done and ready to eat.




I am happy to report I solved the biscuits. This batch looked good and tasted good.




I am not a Mac & Cheese lover. I have never enjoyed Mac & Cheese I have eaten-until now that is. I loved this version as did my wife. We also had surprise company show up as we were sitting down to eat and they loved it too.


Now here are some optional pictures. I was given a 1 year old KitchenAid stand mixer in July. I have been experimenting with indoor baking of desserts. For this meal I was going to do my first cake on the Egg. I mixed it up while the Mac & Cheese was baking and I planned to pop it on the Egg when the Mac & Cheese came off. Sadly it looked like thunderstorms were moving in and I had to take my EZ-Up down earlier this week. It didn’t even last one summer. Anyway with the downpours we have been having this summer, I was afraid to try it on the Egg this time. So this was cooked in my oven instead of the Egg. In my heart I know it would have turned out just as well, so here are the pictures.



The cake batter used: Cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, vegetable oil, water, 6 separated eggs, lemon zest & cream of tartar.




I only had 6 eggs & this egg separator gave me confidence since when I separate eggs through my fingers I sometimes drop the yolk in the sink.




I enjoyed whipping the egg whites with the mixer far more than doing it by hand with a whisk.




The whipped egg whites




The remaining ingredients are mixed together.




The whipped egg whites are folded in.




The Mac & Cheese just came off the grill & is cooling. Sadly the cake is in the oven and not the BGE. Here are the ingredients for the glaze: Confectioners suger, lemon juice & heavy cream.




The cake is out of the oven, & is ready to be glazed.




The cake is glazed and it is time for dessert.




This was the best lemon chiffon cake I have ever made. Of course it is the only lemon chiffon cake I’ve ever made.


We were eating an hour later than normal. Our surprise company thought they were arriving after we ate, but they had some Mac & Cheese & stayed for dessert. They said they were glad they showed up when they did


Jim

Congratulations on some mighty enjoyable looking comfort food, Jim. Looks great! The reason your biscuits come out differently from what you expect is because that book gives you a recipe for what are called "drop" biscuits, rather than say buttermilk or soda or angel biscuits, for example. They are supposed to be gooey, and hence "dropped" onto the baking sheet.

I'll try to catch up with all the other posts when I get to feeling a little better.

beercuer wrote:

..The reason your biscuits come out differently from what you expect is because that book gives you a recipe for what are called "drop" biscuits, rather than say buttermilk or soda or angel biscuits, for example. They are supposed to be gooey, and hence "dropped" onto the baking sheet. ...

Thanks beercuer! I don't know what the ingredients were supposed to make, but the directions said that you were supposed to turn it out and roll the dough into a 1 inch thick square shaped piece and and use a cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits. I don't know why last week I had a brain cramp. I guess in my mind biscuit dough was different than any other kind of dough. I really have no explanation for why I didn't just add little flower when the consistency seemed wrong. I guess because I didn't know what the dough consistency was really supposed to be like, and I was afraid of over handling the dough. Doh! Thanks for looking and commenting, hope you're feeling better soon.

Jim

Great job, Jim! Everything looks wonderfully tasty--from the Mac&cheese to the cake.

Wonderful looking meal, Jim! I need to crack my BGE Cookbook open and whip up a batch of that. It looks terrific! The cake looks outstanding too! Nice job all around...

Looks great, Jim. Glad you liked the mac 'n cheese. When we made it, we weren't all that thrilled with it. Maybe we should try again.

Got a question on the biscuits. I noticed you said it was too sticky and you added more dough....am I reading that right, or did you mean to say flour?

Jim,

Look at making a meal, full with Desert like Smokin'girl... LOL

Great looking meal! What is that hooked mixer you are using in the first picture?

The only things that're missing are another batch of biscuits and some sausage gravy to go over them...great job, Jim! The mac 'n' cheese looks great!

Although I think you're killing poor Qjuju with all these carbs!

Thanks guys and gal.

Griffin wrote:

Looks great, Jim. Glad you liked the mac 'n cheese. When we made it, we weren't all that thrilled with it. Maybe we should try again.

Got a question on the biscuits. I noticed you said it was too sticky and you added more dough....am I reading that right, or did you mean to say flour?

Sorry I meant flour. Doh!

Let's put it this way, I'm a long time mac & cheese hater and this was the first stuff that I would actually have a second bowl of. I found it to be relatively mild, what flavor it did have I definitely liked. My wife had two bowls of it yesterday for breakfast, and another bowl for breakfast today. The only reason she didn't have a second bowl today is she ran out of time and would miss her train. Sadly, she actually asked herself if she could take the later train so she could have more. I have been thinking of doing mac & cheese on the smoker for a while. I have a couple supposedly good recipes squirreled away somewhere. When I got my egg, a couple folks mentioned that the mac & cheese recipe in the BGE Cookbook was pretty good.

sroach wrote:

Jim,

Look at making a meal, full with Desert like Smokin'girl... LOL

Great looking meal! What is that hooked mixer you are using in the first picture?

Thanks sroach, but it's best not to mention me, desserts and smokin'gal in the same sentence. She's probably forgotten more about desserts than I'll ever know.

That is the dough hook that came with my mixer. I didn't use it for this recipe, I just hadn't taken it off when that picture was taken.

ScreamingChicken wrote:

....Although I think you're killing poor Qjuju with all these carbs!

Actually if I recall correctly "poor" QJuju is one of the folks who actually suggested making that exact dish.

Jim

Awesome meal Jim!!
I’m glad you’re enjoying your new grill. I know from experience, it’s the best feeling in the world when you get a new grill and every thing you put on it turns out great.
That euphoric feeling is more important than eating
And the people around you they eat well too

Thanks Z! You summed it up exactly. It really is a euphoric feeling. Everything I do seems to be coming out Best in class. The exciting thing is I now know even old favorites are going to come out better. I generally try to keep doing new things each week, but I'm now actually looking forward to revisiting some of my old favorites again. This is absolutely THE MOST FUN I've had with this hobby ever! The best part is I'm just getting started!

Jim