my kitchen counter

Greek Mac and Cheese

Last night for dinner I was desperately in the mood for comfort food. I had been feeling kind of blue all day, stressed about the holidays and silly things like visas and returning to England in January, and just wanted to curl up. Plus, we went to see Somewhere on Monday, and I have been digging the idea of homemade Mac and Cheese since the moment Cleo asks the concierge at Chateau Marmont to bring her a cheese grater. Then, as if the universe could read my mind, the Saveur Weeknight Meals email hit my inbox with Greek Mac and Cheese at the top of the list. The recipe on the website is adapted from Michael Psilakis and is as follows:

Ingredients: 

3 slices crustless white bread, torn into small pieces

9 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Kosher salt, to taste

8 oz. hollow pasta, preferably elbow macaroni 

1/4 cup flour

3 cups milk

4 cups grated graviera or kefalotyri cheese (about 12 oz.)

3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

8 large shallots, finely chopped

16 oz. baby spinach, roughly chopped

8 scallions cut into 1/4”-thick rounds

1/3 cup roughly chopped fresh dill

1 3/4 cups crumbled feta (about 8 oz.)

Directions:

Put bread into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Put bread crumbs and 3 tbsp. butter into a small bowl and combine; set aside. Bring a 6-qt. pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until cooked halfway through, about 3 minutes. Drain pasta, rinse with cold water, and set aside. Heat remaining butter in a 4-qt. saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and cook, whisking constantly, for 1 minute. Still whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in milk and cook until sauce has thickened and coats the back of a spoon, 10–15 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Stir in graviera, cinnamon, and nutmeg and season with salt and pepper; set béchamel sauce aside. Heat oven to 350°. Heat oil in a 5-qt. pot over medium heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring often, until soft, 3–4 minutes. Add spinach and scallions and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until wilted, about 3 minutes. Stir in the reserved béchamel sauce, the dill, and the reserved pasta and transfer mixture to a 9” x 13” baking dish. Sprinkle evenly with reserved bread crumbs and the feta. Bake until golden brown and bubbly, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Now, I have to be honest, I made a few changes. First of all, I used panko instead of pureeing white bread. I used much less butter… about 4 tablespoons in my bechamel, and olive oil on the crumbs rather than butter. I was low on shallots (only one left) so I used a mixture of shallots, red onions and white onions instead of shallots and scallions. I had delicious looking kale in the fridge and threw it in with the spinach to add more green than the recipe calls for. Because I am not super precise when I am cooking, my bechamel was getting too thick… but I was out of milk so I had to improve. I ended up using some chicken stock to smooth out the cream sauce and it was DELICIOUS. I highly recommend it. Finally, Graviera or Kefalotyri are hard cheeses to come across if you don’t live in an area with a large Greek population (which I don’t!) and after some research on the internet I found the closest suggestion was Parmesan. The end result was delicious and just what I needed to cheer me up. Well, that, a good friend and a nice glass of white wine.