Last month on the Disney Parks Blog, a post was published about new menu items at the Biergarten in Epcot. Included in this article was a recipe for the new to the buffet nudel gratin. Looking at the pictures alone made me hungry for this Disney dish, so I decided to give it a shot making it at home.
Here is the recipe from the Parks Blog:
Nudel Gratin
Serves 8 to 10
2 cups heavy cream
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch ground white pepper
Pinch nutmeg
4 ounces Swiss cheese, shredded
4 ounces white cheddar cheese, shredded
1 pound cooked elbow macaroni
- Preheat oven to 375F. Spray a 16×9-inch baking dish with nonstick spray.
- Combine cream, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a large bowl, whisking to combine. Toss cheeses together in a small bowl until combined; remove 1 cup cheese and set aside. Stir remaining cheeses into cream mixture.
- Cook macaroni until just tender; drain and add cream mixture, stirring immediately. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish. Cover with foil.
- Bake 30 minutes. Remove foil, and sprinkle reserved cheese over top of noodles. Bake 15 minutes longer.
- Cool 10 minutes before cutting into squares. Serve warm.
My Disney Dish: Nudel Gratin
Nudel gratin is essentially a form of macaroni in cheese to put it in its simplest terms. The basics are there with elbow macaroni pasta, cheese, cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg and eggs. I have made mac and cheese from scratch before, but had forgotten how much time it takes in comparison to opening a box of Kraft or heating up Stouffer’s frozen mac and cheese. Make sure you read through the entire recipe including the instructions and not just the ingredients before you start cooking. I made the mistake of not doing so and didn’t realize until I was ready for it that I was out of aluminum foil and had to go out and get some even though the food was ready to go in the oven. I don’t think it had any adverse affect delaying the baking, but it made dinner later, which was annoying. So make sure you have your baking dish, mixing bowls, cooking spray, aluminum foil, etc. all ready to go along with your ingredients.
Since I couldn’t find shredded white cheddar or swiss cheese with the other shredded cheeses at Publix, I bought blocks of each type of cheese and ended up grating them myself. This also added just a couple minutes to the relatively quick prep time of otherwise about 15-20 minutes. Most of the prep time was taken up by preheating the oven while waiting for the water to boil and cooking the pasta. While these were happening that didn’t need active supervision, I combined the cream, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cheeses. Total start to finish time with preheating, prep work, baking and cooling should take about an hour and ten minutes, so make sure you set aside a good amount of time before dinner to start.
Overall, my brother and I thought it turned out well, and we would definitely have it again. We served it with ham and peas with a chardonnay, which seemed to complement the pasta dish well. Have you tried to make your favorite Disney dish at home? I’ve tried a few with varying degrees of success, but this was one of the best results and best tasting recipes I’ve made from Walt Disney World. Give it a try if you’re looking for a relatively easy, albeit time consuming, dish to start.
