Bouchon Bistro Macaroni au Gratin (The French Mac and Cheese)
Prep time: 20 min Cook time: 50 min Servings: 8 (side dish) Difficulty: Intermediate
This is the recipe Thomas Keller’s staff makes for his annual Yountville Thanksgiving dinner for veterans — and the one Saveur ran twice because they could not stop thinking about it. It comes from the Bouchon cookbook and the technique is different enough from American mac and cheese that it deserves its own category: a French mornay-based gratin built on clove-infused aromatic milk, with Comté as the cheese and a genuine breadcrumb crust baked to deep amber.
The Two-Onion Technique
Half the onion is minced and cooked directly into the roux — it dissolves completely into the béchamel, adding a savory base depth you cannot identify as onion but that plain béchamel lacks. The other half is studded with whole cloves and steeped in the milk, which transfers the quiet warmth of the cloves into the sauce base. Neither technique alone does both jobs. Together, they are the detail that makes a restaurant béchamel taste different from a home one.
The Cheese
Comté is the right cheese here: an aged French Alpine mountain cheese that melts without the greasy separation American cheddar produces at high oven heat. Gruyère is the closest substitute and works nearly identically. Do not use pre-shredded cheese of either type — the anti-caking starch makes the mornay grainy. Buy a block and grate it fresh.
The Crust
Bake until the crust is golden and the sauce bubbles at the edges — Keller’s benchmark is “golden and bubbly,” and a deep amber crust beats a pale one. Pale crumbs usually mean the gratin came out early, before the top crisped and the sauce finished setting underneath. Give it the full 40–45 minutes and judge by color, not the clock; if the crumbs darken too fast, tent loosely with foil.
