Fries with a Trio of Sauces-- Garlic Aioli, Truffle Mayo, Chipotle Ketchup

This was a pretty simple concept, to just make dipping sauces for french fries, but it was really effective in taking a batch of french fries into a side dish with a cool presentation.

Here are the original recipes for Garlic Aioli, Chipotle Ketchup, and Truffle Mayonnaise.

Ingredients:
Garlic Aioli
-3/4 cup mayonnaise
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
-3/4 teaspoon salt
-1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Chipotle Ketchup

-1 cup ketchup
-1 1/2 teaspoons chopped chipotle chiles from canned chipotles in adobo

-2 tablespoons adobo sauce from can
-2 teaspoons (or more) balsamic vinegar

Truffle Mayonnaise

-1/2 cup Mayo 

-1/2 cup plain yogurt 

-1 Tablespoon Truffle oil

-black pepper

For each dip, just mix together all the ingredients, and chill for 30 minutes before serving.

The garlic aioli was our favorite of these sauces, it was pretty creamy and had a light flavor. The chipotle ketchup was good too, it was just the right amount of spicy. The truffle mayo was ok, I think the truffle flavor was a little strong, so I would suggest starting out with a little bit, because you can always just stir in a few more drops if you want more flavor.

Truffle Mac and Cheese

I've seen a lot of recipes with truffle oil, but I've never made anything with it, and I don't think I've ever eaten anything with it. I bought some to try, and this was our first recipe using it. I'll probably be trying a few more things with it in the future.

This recipe comes from double truffle.

We doubled the original recipe, so this made about 6 servings.

Ingredients:
-2 2/3 cups macaroni
-1 cup dry white wine
-2 1/2 cup vegetable stock
-2 cup sharp cheddar cheese (we used extra, more than the original recipe called for)
-2 Tblsp flour
-1 cup cream cheese
-4 tsp truffle oil (but possibly use less, this was a lot for us)
-Black pepper

Boil white wine for 10 minutes. Then add the vegetable stock.
Lower the heat, coat the cheddar cheese with flour, and add to the mix.
Add the cream cheese and stir.

This stage took a long time for our cheese mixture to thicken, and it never really got as thick as I thought it should.

Cook the macaroni according to package directions.
Add the truffle oil to the cheese and pour over the macaroni.

Top with some pepper.

This recipe wasn't as good as I had hoped, but I think it was just because we used too much truffle oil. The flavor was pretty good, but just strong. I think using cream cheese was a good idea for this macaroni and cheese. I'll probably try this again sometimes, but try to cook the sauce on a higher heat to make it thicker and use less truffle oil.