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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

You use heavy cream in macaroni cheese? Is that an American thing? I've only ever known it as a mixture of egg/cheese/milk/breadcrumb.

Maybe it's a British thing, we have a lot of traditions which date from the war - cornflour custard, eggy mac cheese, margarine, boiling hot tea...

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I'm not really sure what the normal american way is. At this point I've made mac+cheese in every way possible. (ie for a while I was trying milk instead of water when cooking the pasta, and attended the pot as it cooked on a slow simmer. It works OK)

Since you're British I recommend you try making "Mac+Cheese tikka masala", basically use your favorite recipe for chicken tikka masala but swap out the chicken and no rice, and the sauce will call for (among other things) heavy cream! It is a crowd pleaser for sure.

The normal American makes crappy mac-n-cheese from a box :-) However, I've never heard of eggs in it. Sounds interesting, in a pasta carbonara sort of way. Is it a baked recipe, or "sauce & noodles" deal?

I typically make a roux, add a sharp/extra sharp cheddar to it to make a very tangy cheese sauce, then stir in the cooked macaroni, and a touch of paprika and cayenne and sprinkle breadcrumbs on top. Sometimes I will add feta or a little blue cheese if I have any on hand. My Midwestern wife adds Velveeta since she likes the extra creaminess and it's how her mom made it. Either way is fine with me.

Ronald Reagan mac and cheese uses an egg [0].

I haven't tried it, but molecular gastronomists (or are they modernists?) use sodium citrate to keep real cheese creamy when it's heated [1].

0. http://lincolnslunch.blogspot.com/2012/02/ronald-reagan-maca...

1. http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/silky-smooth-macaroni-an...

I use butter and milk, so heavy cream is probably reasonably close to the same thing.

I also use real, quality cheese. Tillamook sharp cheddar and fresh-grated parmesan, by preference.

That box crap from Kraft doesn't merit the name. If that were a new product, I don't think they'd be allowed to call it "mac and cheese" under current regulations.

If not heavy cream then straight butter is fairly common in north america, yes.

béchamel (which would include flour, butter, and some sort of cream) and cheese is the classic sauce for Mac and cheese.

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