Unsuccessful Recipe!

Blech!!! Blech! Blech! Blech! It was too good to be true! After three successful new recipes I had a bad one. I made "Ebi to Broccoli 'Gratin'" by Amy Kaneko from her cookbook called, "Let's Cook Japanese Food!" It's a wonderful cookbook. She's an American woman married to a Japanese man whose family taught her how to cook Japanese food. Once she moved back to the US, she tried recreating those favorite recipes using ingredients and cooking tools that you can find here. Since Japanese cuisines are influenced by other countries, there are plenty of "chuka ryori" and "yoshoku" dishes in the book. It's usually difficult to find those recipes except in Japanese language-only recipe books. Her recipes are pretty good. One night, we did an "izakaya" night. From her book, I made agedashi dofu (fried soft tofu), spinach in sesame dressing, steamed clams in sake and butter broth, and karaage chicken. I also made some gyoza, too. I took a photo of it, but I can't find it. It was fun, we had sake, too. Well, going back to the gratin... My husband and I have always had problems when we try to make creamy cheesey sauces for macaroni. The gratin was easy and all the flavors were basically good, it's just that the cheese sauce didn't come out very good. It was all curdly and super greasy. But I have to say it was the closest I've ever been to getting it right, though. So I think if someone who knew how to do it right would actually show me, I can do it.