Teach kids to make mac and cheese

If your household includes children, you likely lost count long ago of the number of bowls of macaroni and cheese you've made, ordered at restaurants, or microwaved. As though by some collective agreement, the stuff becomes locked into our food psyches from an absurdly early age, the very definition of comfort food.

There's good reason for that. A bowl of pasta loaded with cheese sauce is a 3-year-old's version of the crispy baguette and excellent French Camembert that is for some of us a staple food of adulthood. And, as with many simple recipes, the dish hinges on the quality of its ingredients. Also, if you're going to make pot after pot of the stuff, it should be good. Most of all, you'll want your kid to make it for herself as soon as is reasonably possible.

The best reason for making mac and cheese is the cheese itself. A pot of melted cheese sauce is by nature forgiving: You can grate whatever odds and ends you have in your cheese drawer and they can coalesce into something quite marvelous. But it's also an occasion to source the good stuff, to turn the production into a kind of cheese-plate tasting menu.

Head to your local cheesemonger (your kid will appreciate both word and job description) and get some Montgomery's cheddar from England, or Vermont's Cabot clothbound cheddar or Hook's aged cheddar from Wisconsin. If you haven't tried Gruyere in your mac and cheese, you're missing out. Nutty and slightly sweet, the Swiss cheese has a complex and highly addictive earthy flavor when aged - and it's often done in actual caves, something else your kid will appreciate. And if you usually just grate Parmesan over spaghetti and meatballs, you'll enjoy adding it to your cheese sauce; the pungent, salty cheese gives further dimension to the flavors.

You can also think of a pot of mac and cheese as an object lesson. If you break down the components, you have a surprisingly extensive tutorial on basic kitchen techniques. Pasta is an occasion to discuss the relationship between sauce and noodle, how the consistency of the former matches with the shape, size and texture of the latter. Imagine mac and cheese made with lasagna, orzo, vermicelli, fideo. No. Then there's the tragedy of overcooked pasta. If your kid learns how to cook her noodles properly al dente in elementary school, you have passed on a gift that will last a lifetime.

You can achieve a perfectly creditable mac and cheese without roux. But making a roux is a lot easier than it sounds - you just cook flour and butter for a while. It also sounds pretty impressive. You can then segue naturally into a discussion of mother sauces, and graduate to bechamel and veloute. Making a roux is fun, does not take long, and can even be slightly meditative once you get the hang of it.

The beautiful thing about mac and cheese is that you're not going to grow out of it. You'll crave it at odd moments, wanting a soothing pot of it, as one of my daughters likes it, or preferring it baked until crunchy and golden, as my other daughter likes it. It's a dish that migrates from afternoon homework sessions to dorm room kitchens to, some day, maybe more children.

And, as your kid's palette changes, you'll find that mac and cheese can be dressed up with other stuff (bacon, truffles) and that it is an utterly fantastic conduit for hot sauce. My daughter's current favorite addition to the basic recipe she's been making since third grade is a shaker of bhut jolokia salt. I like to think of it as our kitchen version of the American dream: from bars of the Velveeta my mother used to ghost chilies, in one generation.

Makes 8 to 12 servings

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1 pound elbow macaroni

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

1/4 cup flour

2 cups milk, more if needed

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 fresh bay leaves

2 cups (about 8 ounces) grated Gruyere cheese

2 cups (about 8 ounces) grated cheddar cheese

11/4 cups (about 4 ounces) Parmesan cheese, divided

1/2 cup bread crumbs

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1. If baking the mac and cheese, heat the oven to 400 degrees and butter a 13-by-9-inch baking or casserole dish.

2. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the macaroni to the water and cook until it is just al dente, stirring occasionally to keep the noodles from sticking together and to the bottom. Drain the macaroni, then place it in a large bowl.

3. In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. When it's melted, quickly whisk in the flour to keep it from clumping and to form a roux. Reduce the heat and continue to cook the roux, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes.

4. Slowly pour in the milk while whisking. Add the pepper and bay leaves. Increase the temperature until the mixture begins to simmer, still whisking, and cook until it thickens to the consistency of heavy cream. Remove from heat and fish out the bay leaves, using a pair of tongs or a spoon.

5. Gradually add the Gruyere and cheddar cheeses, along with 1 cup of Parmesan to the sauce, stirring until the cheese is melted. If the sauce is too thick, whisk in additional milk, a tablespoon or so at a time. When the cheese sauce is smooth, pour over the pasta and stir until combined. Serve as is or bake.

6. To bake, spoon the mixture into the baking dish. In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs with the remaining Parmesan and sprinkle over the pasta. Bake until the crumbs are golden brown and the mac and cheese is bubbly, about 25 to 30 minutes.

- From Amy Scattergood
Per serving (based on 12): 407 calories, 20 g fat, 61 mg cholesterol, 350 mg sodium, 155 mg potassium, 36 g carbohydrates, 1 g dietary fiber, 3 g sugars, 21 g protein 20.6g

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