OurLittleCorner

Nov 19, 2024 – Ann is in OurLittleCorner today

Comfort When We Need It

It was December 2001. Our grandson, whose middle name is Comfort, was 3 months old. This hand-done cookbook was our Christmas gift from him…with a little help from his mother.

The introduction to this cookbook has this to say about comfort food: “This is the stuff that warms the soul – macaroni and cheese, chicken pot pie, and cobbler. And most importantly, it’s the kind of food that grounds us in times when the world seems to have gone astray.” We needed comfort back in 2001 and we need it again now.

A survey of some of our devoted BigLittleMeals readers turned up some fun (and not surprising) comfort food suggestions: mac+cheese, meatloaf, grilled cheese sandwiches, mac+cheese, a chicken and rice casserole with cream of mushroom soup, mac+cheese, a hamburger casserole using tomato soup (aka Johnny Marzetti), a potato casserole, mashed potatoes, and mac+cheese. But we also had some more worldly comfort food suggestions. How about Panzit from the Phillipines (vermicelli rice noodles with chicken, shrimp, and cabbage) or Holubky from Slovakia (ground beef-stuffed cabbage rolls), or Printzi Yeghintz from Armenia (rice pilaf)? And there’s this from the now-23-year-old precocious grandson who wrote the book at 3 months – how about Indian Butter Chicken! That is what he remembers fondly from dinners at his Gramps’ and Nana’s house.

Here’s a link to some of the comforting recipes we received. Here’s a link to our Indian Butter Chicken recipe. And here’s the comforting recipe we received which we’re going to try first (it’s straight from Louisiana – with a Mexican twist):

Use 1# browned Jimmy Dean sausage; a cup of shredded cheddar cheese could be stirred into the sausage. Top the cornbread with slices of jalapeno before baking.

In Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, appropriately entitled Comfort, he quotes the writer Laurie Colwin: “When life is hard and the day has been long, the ideal dinner is not four perfect courses…but rather something comforting and savory, easy on the digestion – something that makes one feel, if even for only a minute, that one is safe.” Colwin, in her book Home Cooking calls comfort food “nursery food,” and she writes, “After a good nursery dinner you want your guests to smile happily and say with child-like contentment, ‘I haven’t had that in years.'”

The European edition of Comfort.

It’s not surprising that Ottolenghi, the Israeli-born London restauranteur and his recipe collaborators, include recipes that are way more exotic than our Big Little Meals readers’ recipes. Think “Coconut Rice with Peanut Sauce and Cucumber Relish,” or “Breakfast Boureka with Spinach.”

I love this introduction to Ottolenghi’s new cookbook: One person’s idea of comfort food might be the next person’s idea of challenging. It’s so personal, so tied up with home, with family, with memory, even with the random idiosyncrasies of human taste. It’s culturally specific, as well. One kid’s grilled cheese sandwich dream is the next kid’s nightmare….mac ‘n’ cheese, chicken ramen, schnitzel, sausages and mash, pizza, chicken noodle soup, lentils and rice, dal, dumplings – the definitive comfort food for many, certainly, but there is no-one-comfort-food-fits all.

Here’s another great source for comfort food recipes, given to us recently as a thank-you by the perfect dinner guests. Were the albondigas I served seen as comfort food?

What better recipe to include today than one straight from our 3-month-old grandson’s cookbook. Plus, it’s for mac + cheese! Child-like comfort when we need it.

See the recipe below for a slightly-updated version of this classic comfort food.

Our modern Comfort Mac & Cheese (I admittedly miss that deep golden cheese color of Kraft Mac & Cheese – which originally came from adding “Yellow 5 and
Yellow 6!”)

Comfort Mac & Cheese

Recipe can be easily halved if you’re only serving 3-4. If making it to serve at a later date, you can freeze it – unbaked – then put it in the refrigerator to defrost a day before baking and serving. Adapted from an old Gourmet Magazine recipe – and our grandson’s recipe.

  • 8 T butter, divided
  • 1/4 c plus 2 T flour
  • 4 c milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp dry mustard
  • 2 tsp Diamond kosher salt
  • 1/8 tsp cayenne
  • pinch of black pepper
  • 1 lb elbow macaroni
  • 3 c grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese (about 6 oz)
  • 1 1/3 c grated Parmesan cheese (about 3 oz)
  • 1 c Panko bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter a 3-4 quart gratin or other shallow baking dish.

In a saucepan, melt 6T butter over low heat. Add flour and cook, whisking, for about 3 minutes. Add milk in a stream, whisking, and bring to a boil. Add mustard, salt, cayenne, and pepper, and simmer sauce, whisking occasionally, until thickened – about 2 minutes.

For the macaroni: you can follow SmittenKitchen’s advice and simply soak the uncooked pasta in hot water for 10 minutes and then drain well (I tried it and it works – and is so simple) – or you can cook the macaroni in a pot of salted boiling water until al dente, about 7 minutes, and then drain well.

In a large bowl, stir together macaroni, sauce, Cheddar, and 1 c of the Parmesan cheese, then transfer to the prepared dish.

In a small bowl, stir together the bread crumbs, remaining 2 T of butter, melted, and remaining 1/3 c Parmesan; sprinkle that over the macaroni.

Bake macaroni for about 25-30 minutes – or until golden and bubbling.

Recipe brought to you by BigLittleMeals.com and Andy and Ann.

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