$145 vs $10 Mac & Cheese: Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients | Epicurious

i don't run but i would run if i had to in exchange for pasta not a marathon but maybe a 5k [Music] hi i'm bill i'm a professional chef and this is a 145 mac n cheese hi i'm emily i'm a home cook and these are my ten dollar mac and cheese ingredients okay [Music] oh there's a creature i love velpito well i guess i'm making lobster mac and cheese [Music] all right so here is chef bill's recipe book as usual no measurements no instructions just ingredients for my mac and cheese i was planning on making cavitelli with lobster mornay sauce i had some excellent ingredients to work with i had a wild lobster imported fresh from nova scotia i'm from nova scotia we're from the same place and use the shells to infuse the base of the sauce made with whole milk thyme freshly ground nutmeg bay leaf butter flour garlic black peppercorns and cayenne pepper essentially a lobster shell-infused bechamel to uh make that into a mornay i was going to add cheese a lot of cheese gruyere raclette aged cheddar and parmesan these cheeses smell incredible and i had everything i needed to make fresh cavitelli from scratch double o flour organic eggs and milk it was going to be rich creamy and delicious this looks incredible and of course there's the lobster in the room the elephant in the room i think it's looking at me that's okay with emily's recipe i have simpler ingredients stuff that you probably already have in your pantry or at the local grocery store so the mac and cheese that i was going to make was a slow cooker one pot velveeta concoction it's basically the closest you can get to making mac and cheese for a box while making it homemade macaroni flour bread crumbs extra sharp cheddar evaporated milk butter tabasco and velveeta also some ketchup because i do like to put a little bit of ketchup on my mac and cheese i won't put ketchup on this mac and cheese i love ketchup i'm not insane these ingredients might be simple but i think i can do something with these if i had to guess i would say these probably cost around 15 bucks okay i'm going to go like 77 145 i'm not terrified at all don't worry about it so i have some concerns looks like i'm going to have to turn a lobster into food which i can do but i'm a little nervous about that's all my recipe uses a lobster mornay sauce clearly we're going to be using a lobster we want to use the freshest seafood possible that's the live lobster it's the best for everybody including the lobster so we want to dispatch lobster in the most humane way possible looks like i'm gonna have to call rose emily hi rose so what are you making today so it's a cavatelli with a lobster mornay sauce is the official name of the recipe yum it sounds very fancy uh so i do have some questions for you obviously i'm here for you emily what do i do with the lobster get the lobster cold first so you can put them in the freezer maybe 15 minutes take the lobster out take a sharp knife and poke into the head and make a a cut and then immediately into hot boiling water you're going to get really nice results and it's the best way to dispatch that lobster okay so then once i have a cooked lobster what do i do with it so you're going to take your lobster and cool it down a little bit first so you can handle it have a bowl and a side towel ready with these delicious lobsters we want to use every part of that animal so you can save your shells and the body and you can actually infuse your milk when you're heating it to make the mornay sauce so use your shells from the claws as well as the tail and then save the body and make a stock with it later i feel better now i can do this i can definitely probably do this so like rose said the most humane way to kill a lobster is just to take your neck in quickly in a downward motion pull it through the head so i'm going to do that and then i can put my lobster into the boiling water so to start off i'm going right to the best part the velveeta we're going to make some velveeta croutons what is velveeta a pasteurized recipe cheese product liquid gold i love it because it melts great it's creamy it's definitely a nostalgic flavor all right so the lobster is ready to go into the boiling water oh that's hot all right we're good we're good everything's fine i'm just gonna cut these into one inch slices sort of like miniature mozzarella sticks because velveeta melts so easily and so wonderfully and we're gonna pop this in the freezer to keep it super super cold before we put it in the fryer all right i'm going to check on my lobster i think it is done so let's pull them out looks red looks delicious i'm excited to eat them sorry so you might notice i have one glove on today i am not a super villain nor is it for fashion purposes i cut myself in the kitchen the other day occupational hazard so i've got half that's going to go in the sauce half that's been cubed i'm going to pop that in the freezer before we bread and fry it so my lobster's all cooked it's cooled down time to take this lobster apart so i haven't broken down a lot of lobsters in my life but i am nova scotian so i am willing to believe it's just in my blood okay i'm going to start with the nice and easy just pull in these guys out claws removed i feel like there's a thing where you can just like crack maybe i have to yeah there we go there's like stuff here and i'm not sure if what we've got going on is lobster eggs or lobster cuts i think we can just sit in here for now so now we're going to bread our velveeta croutons we're going to be double breading them just to make sure that they have a nice crispy crunchy coating and that that velveeta stays inside of the breading when it melts so i've got the frozen velveeta it's been in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes and we've got the bread crumbs in the flour from emily's original recipe and two eggs with my tail i think i have two options one is that i can go from this end the other is to go down the middle let's try the this end side this is a little picky bit that you can use to like get meat out when it's stuck so i'm just cutting down the center with my kitchen shears put my shells in my broth shell area yeah i think that's a pretty pretty good tail so i've got my uh bread crumbs here flour i'm gonna whisk these up i'm gonna season my breadcrumbs just a little bit with black pepper and a little salt so i've gotten a lot of my meat out the next thing i'm going to do is handle my claws anytime that i'm plating lobster i really like to keep the whole claw together it makes a nice presentation it's going to be tricky i'm not going to lie to you in order to do that i separate the whole claw arm from the body including the knuckles and then separate the claw from the knuckles so my claw is still mostly intact right now the next step is to perform claw surgery which is to try and gently get it out of here so just having to be very gentle while also breaking a claw gently crack that claw open and sort of pull it out just being as tender as you can and keep that all together okay yeah okay don't freak out don't get cocky i'm doing rocket surgery over here so i got the end of the shell off so now it's just about feel good feeling real good looks like they'll let me back into nova scotia we're gonna go flower egg panko egg back into the bread crumbs so we've got a really nice bread crumb coating i'm just going to repeat that for all these all right so i have my lobster shells soaking i'm going to use them to infuse my mornay with more lobstery goodness and now i'm just going to cut up the tail and knuckle meat i want my lobster pieces to be not too big because i should probably go with the pasta like in terms of size and experience i'm ready for my nap most delicious things are double breaded at least in my world if your bread crumbs start to get really eggy just push them sort of to the back we're double breadcrumbing just to get that really nice crunchy breading on the outside but also velveeta has such a low melting point that we really want to get them kind of encased in that breading so that you're not just leaking velveeta out into your fryer fat so our velveeta cubes are double breaded i'm going to throw these back in the freezer until we're ready to fry i'm going to start my pasta dough for the cavitelli i was going to make my own pasta dough something i do all the time super easy feels more impressive than it actually is hard i have made pasta dough before i have not made cavitelli before but i'm gonna go with my gut and we'll see what happens so emily don't be intimidated this is a super easy trick once you do it once you'll want to do it all the time first thing i'm gonna do is simply make a well with my flower put all of your flour into a nice tidy pile making a little well is that enough of a well i don't know i'm always making it up as i go like this song which i am writing look at these yolks they're so orange they're like a sunset and i'm gonna just mix these up i think no yes yeah looking good feeling good fill that well with all of your eggs and your milk and your oil then using your fingertips gradually break up your egg yolks and gently start to incorporate your flour all the way around your well sort of slowly adding it in and making a paste i am going to try to just keep working this and incorporate as much of all of this as i can once you start to bring it together as a shaggy dough bring your remaining flour in and start kneading it by hand i think that if i just kind of keep going eventually it'll come together i think that's like my career but just keep going kind of looks like velveeta once your dough is smooth and elastic and feels like your earlobe yeah this is ready to rest wrap it in food wrap and set it aside for at least 30 minutes if not an hour there we go that's a wrap okay let's fry these velveeta croutons got our frozen velveeta cubes double breaded ready to go we've got our canola oil between 350 and 360 right now i'm just gonna fry these until they're golden brown and let's see how this goes my pasta dough has been resting for about half an hour and it is time for me to shape my cavitelli bill has sent me these two contraptions i'm not sure how to use either of them but i am going to try i'm going to try this one first because it looks less scary and less potentially ouchy there's two different types of apparatus that you can use to make the cavitelli you might see a hand cranked machine the hand cranks super easy but the one that you do by hand is super satisfying so if you have the old style but really nice wooden board it has ridges in it you're gonna take your cigar and chop it up into small pieces what you do is you take one of these little balls hold it press it firmly either with your thumb or two fingers evenly and you roll the cavitelli against the wooden surface actually i think that could be right all right that's one it might not be cavitelli but it's covertilly-like shh we'll just keep going the more i do it better it'll be and i think that the secret that i'm missing is that i have to get this edge at this point so that when i get to here they're both thin like that rose was right it is very satisfying i am the cavatelli queen see mac and cheese is fun food so this is like a fun garnish like little mozzarella sticks we're almost there these are gonna be good so clearly i was nailing it with the cavitelli board but i like a challenge so i'm gonna also try this little machiney guy and just see what happens and first thing i have to do is make a cigar put some arm strength into it you know all right i'm gonna go with this yeah now we're cooking with gas this is a blast so one of the main things that i'm just keeping track of is trying to maintain a consistent temperature with the oil around 350. because you're adding cold frozen things directly into the oil clearly your temperature is going to drop so you just want to make sure you're kind of adjusting and keeping an eye on your temperature if it gets too high they'll get too too brown too fast and you won't get the cheese to melt on the inside all right that's it velveeta croutons okay so these look way better and more uniform than the ones i was making by hand mine were fun these are better i accept that cavitelli made let's see how it is on the inside oh hmm it tastes like a bowling alley in a good way i'm going to make my morning morning is a bechamel sauce that has had cheese added to it what is a bechamel sauce well it's a milk sauce that has been thickened with a roux butter and flour first thing i need to do is just sort of infuse my milk with flavor just taking my lobster shell pieces cool that feels lobstery and then the next thing i'm going to do is put my garlic bay leaf thyme and peppercorns in here all right so i have all my aromatics in here and i'm just going to add my milk all right i'm just setting this on low and letting it warm up and once this heats up it's roux and cheese time baby so with emily's recipe it was a dump it all together into a crock pot and leave it for two hours kind of recipe but luckily for me i've got all of the materials here to make sort of a classic stovetop mat i'm gonna make cheese sauce i'm going to boil some pasta we're gonna fold it together garnish it with the crispy croutons it's gonna be delicious so let's just start with this cheddar i'm just gonna grate this on the large size just adding this into the pot here this is very simple it's doing the same thing as the crock pot but you have a little bit more control i'm just gonna coarsely chop this velveeta up it's so melty that it doesn't really need to be that small both of my cheeses are in here well one cheese product and one cheese and i'm going to add some evaporated milk so while my milk is simmering i'm going to just use the food processor to shred my cheats okay i'm gonna turn this on low oh well things are going great i'm gonna keep going it hates me i think we're done this is enough cheese all right there we go that's cheese easily shredded i love evaporated milk i it will really make this cheese sauce creamy you're getting all of that dairy without as much water so it's great for something like cheese sauce i'm gonna add like most of this can to start just really get my cheeses down in there we'll let this start to melt so the next thing i have to do is make my roux and then just kind of bring everything together first thing i have to do is just turn this on super low and i'm going to put my butter in the pan and i'm going to add my cayenne pepper and my nutmeg so when emily's making her bechamel she should make sure that she blooms the nutmeg and the cayenne pepper in that melted butter get that so it's nice and aromatic then add your flour whisk it all together and the next thing i'm going to do is just strain my milk pour my milk into here smells good all right i'm just adding a little bit of salt this is starting to look nice huh more like a sauce less like a terror so the next thing i'm going to do is just start adding my cheese in so i've got to be really careful not to boil the cheese because that would be very bad so unlike emily's cheese sauce which you really shouldn't boil this with the velveeta and the evaporated milk is a little bit more forgiving okay this is exactly what we're looking for this like velvety cheese sauce so now that the cheese has been melted i'm going to add a couple dashes of hot sauce here that's just to give it a little bit of flavor i like the little bit of vinegar that hot sauce adds to it too i'm going to keep adding more cheese look at that that's a sauce okay so i think that this is done but before i cover it up and move on to the next thing i'm just going to give it a taste that's great absolutely that's great it's beautiful so i'm just going to put a lid on this set it aside keep it warm while we boil our pasta and finish the rest of our stuff all right so now i'm going to cook my pasta first thing i have to do is toss a little more salt in my water there we go i'm just gonna dump this in and since this is fresh pasta it's gonna cook really quickly and i can tell they're pretty much cooked because they are all floating which is great just gonna drain this off because we're going to be holding this while we rewarm our sauce i'm gonna put a little vegetable oil on this to make sure that it doesn't stick together all right my pasta is good to go so i'm just going to scoop all of these into my sauce all right and the next thing i'm going to do is put my lobster meat into here i'm just combining this i'm gonna add a little splash of evaporated milk here to kind of loosen it up bring it all together ah there we go adding a little more hot sauce just for a little extra flavor a little dash of salt and i'm just gonna fold it all together that looks good to me this looks perfect i think we're ready to plate this thing up so i'm just gonna grab my plate oh yeah there we go this is gonna be so good it's like the best boxed mac and cheese you've ever had i'm gonna take my big boy cloth you know what i'm gonna do both claws these little croutons and just a little parsley on top and i think that looks pretty good and here's my take on chef phil's lobster mac and cheese that's my take on emily's mac and cheese i am very excited to eat this [Music] it's looking delicious i think i drilled a little don't worry emily i didn't forget the ketchup we can use that as a little dip all right it is time to taste i have cheese all over my face it's really good salty and cheesy and you get that beautiful sweet lobster meat it's really good the crunchy with the creamy it's very good this is so simple i don't think i would change much at all even if i had access to other ingredients wow all right i get it sometimes mac and cheese that doesn't come from a box is also exceptional i can't wait to check in with emily to see how she did with the lobster morning i bet she did great i hope he is impressed i'm going to show him my call hi chef bill hi how are you good how you doing good how did it go good oh my gosh it's so tasty good how did the lobster go um pretty good actually i actually got a whole claw out which i did not think i was going to do oh my gosh it's beautiful yay thank you so much i did my best oh it looks great there was a big lobster this was so good i'm glad it went well here i'll show you what i did so i did like stove top and then fried the velveeta i don't know if you can see oh what that's so cool and then i served it with your ketchup a little side of ketchup don't worry i won't put ketchup on this do you think you'll make um cavitelli at home now you know what i totally would i love that little board thing where you just do yeah i was like oh i could do this and have this in my house and do you think you'll be using velveeta more i mean i love velveeta i was not a stranger to velveeta beforehand so it was so great to meet you nice to meet you too bye

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 919,043

Rating: 4.9186969 out of 5

Keywords: easy mac and cheese, epi, epicurious, expensive mac and cheese, expert mac & cheese, fancy mac and cheese, gourmet mac & cheese, gourmet mac and cheese, lobster mac & cheese, lobster mac and cheese, lobster mac and cheese recipe, mac & cheese, mac and cheese, mac and cheese competition, mac and cheese recipe, macaroni & cheese, macaroni and cheese, macaroni and cheese recipe, make mac & cheese, make mac and cheese, pro chef vs home chef, pro chef vs home cook

Id: 3SaN8a80xtc

Length: 21min 18sec (1278 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021