Every November, shiny black wheels of cheese are delivered to our stores and always make our staff and customers go into a tizzy.

Brabander, our favorite goat’s milk Gouda from l’Amuse Gouda in Holland and selected by Essex Street Cheese, is perfection. A balance of goat’s milk sweetness with caramel notes and nice acidity and salt. Take the best of those wheels, paint them in breathable black wax, and age them double the time, and you get perfection + more crystals, more sweetness, more savory complexity - dare I say, more fun?

Now, imagine that complexity brought to a dish as classic as mac & cheese. It has all the comfort of mac & cheese plus all of the decadence of Brabander. Every bite is something to truly savor. 

Trenchers pastas are frozen products that are made with a signature blend of heritage 00 flour and local Vermont wheat to create flavorful and nutritious products. 

The pasta looks like the "whole wheat" varieties you see at the supermarket, but the darker color comes from the lack of bleaches and preservatives in the flour, normally used to prevent oxidation. With Trenchers pasta, the wheat kernel itself is not stripped of the outside Bran layer before being milled. This leaves more nutrition and flavor in the flours as well as giving the pasta a slightly darker color.

We chose Radiatori for this recipe because it is perfectly shaped to hold a ton of cheese in each bite. Yum. Since this product is frozen rather than dried, be sure to keep the cook time to a minimum. The package suggests 2-4 minutes boiling, but we found that the lower limit was best to avoid stickiness in this recipe. The fast cook time definitely puts this dish in the quick and easy category. The perfect balance of fast and incredibly satisfying to eat! 

Mac & cheese can actually be an overwhelming dish, with so many different cheeses and preparation styles to choose from, but the basic idea is that you have melting cheeses that are emulsified into a sauce. You can use only softer melting cheese or you can split your total cheese amount into a melter and a harder flavoring cheese. The higher the amount of harder cheese, the greater the risk of the sauce cooling down into a drier texture. Not the worst problem in the world, and definitely still very tasty, but just a little removed from what some would consider the perfect dish. There is contention, though! There are certainly regional preparation preferences. We've chosen a dish that is emulsified by making a roux, which is a mixture of butter and flour, and split our cheese between the Brabander and the Brabander Reserve. The classic Brabander is slightly softer and aged for a shorter time than the Brabander Reserve, so it is a slightly better melter that will temper the salty, crystalline beauty of Brabander Reserve into a lovely, shiny, silky sauce. 

When making the roux for mac & cheese you want to go for what's labelled here as white or blond. When the mixture is heating it will start to form a light paste, but if the mixture does not completely paste up throughout that is just fine. It is better to have your mixture be the proper color with a slightly more runny texture than to be burnt. You do not want to waste your cheese by melting it into a burnt roux! If you manage to burn your roux, like I did, just restart that part of the process before melting your cheese in. I used a cast iron skillet on medium heat on an electric range. Start out on a lower heat if you are unsure of the equipment you are using or if you know for sure your stove runs hot. You can always bump up the heat a little once you are comfortable!

- 2 ramekins - 4" diameter 
- 1/2 Package Trenchers Farmhouse Radiatori - keep frozen

Bread Crumb Topping 
-3 tablespoons panko bread crumbs
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
-1/8 teaspoon black pepper
-1/8 teaspoon paprika

Roux
-2 tablespoons unsalted butter
-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-7 tablespoons full fat milk, cream, or half and half to start, with more on hand 
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
-1/8 teaspoon black pepper
-1/8 teaspoon paprika
-25 grams grated Brabander
-25 grams grated Brabander Reserve 

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Bring salted water to a boil for the pasta and heat a skillet with neutral oil for toasting the the bread crumb topping.
3. While the water is coming to a boil, grate your cheeses and set aside. Combine all of the bread crumb topping ingredients into a small bowl. Combine all of the roux spices into another small bowl. 
4. Toast the bread crumb topping in the skillet for around two minutes or until golden brown and set aside.
5. When water is boiling, add the radiatori and let boil uncovered for ONLY TWO MINUTES. 
6. Strain the pasta and set aside. 

10. Add the cheese and the rest of the seasonings and mix together. 
11. Continue adding milk, cream, or half and half until the cheese sauce is thick, but glossy and liquid, as well. 
12. Combine cheese sauce and cooked pasta in a separate bowl. 
13. Transfer evenly into two ramekins. 
14. Sprinkle bread crumb topping evenly into both ramekins. 
15. Bake for 10 minutes.