Monday 3 November 2014

The best macaroni and cheese

I recently blogged about the very best macaroni and cheese I ever had, in a French post, which had a lot of success. Ironically enough, it was a success among my English readers. It is a recipe from a Rose Elliot book, my wife is quite fond of her cooking. As it is the first Monday of November, thus a doubly dreary Monday, I thought I would plug again the macaroni and cheese and give the recipe, a courtesy of my wife, who wrote it all in a blog comment last time. The secret is, I think, the capers and especially the Dijon mustard. They really make the recipe stand out. Anyway, here it is:

350g macaroni
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons plain flour
1 pint of milk
150g boursin cheese with herbs & garlic or black pepper (optional)
1-2 heaped teaspoons of Dijon mustard
2-3 tablespoons of capers
250 g strong cheddar cheese, grated
Freshly grated nutmeg
250g cherry tomatoes, halved
Salt and pepper
1. Cook pasta

2. Put olive oil in another pan, add the flour. Stir for a minute or two, until smooth, then add milk, a quarter at a time, whisking after each addition to make a thick sauce.

3. Remove from heat, and add the Boursin, cheddar (leaving a handful), mustard, capers – and then the cooked, drained macaroni.

4. Season with grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, then gently stir in the cherry tomatoes.

5. Put it into baking dish, adding cheddar over top. Cook for 30 mins at gas mark 6/200 C until bubbly and golden.

4 comments:

PJ said...

1 British pint is 568 ml in civilized units according to Google.

Also, 200C = 392F, so 400F should be fine for North American ovens.

Other conversions I will let the readers figure out.

Anonymous said...

We use ml/l in the UK too, and this is what is taught at school. Just for some reason, milk and beer are sold in pints here (not sure why?). The recipe actually says 600 ml (1 pint) of milk.

I wrote down oven temperature in C as this is what our oven uses but the recipe says 200C, 400F or Gas Mark 6. Sorry, I guess I was just cutting corners when typing it up!

Mrs VF

Nellie said...

Yum! Macaroni and cheese! True comfort food and a good choice if one is going to be entertaining vegetarians! Thanks for sharing this one.

Cynthia said...

Miam, ça fait longtemps que j'en ai pas mangé et tu me donnes le goût avec ta recette!