Five Cheese Macaroni Cheese
The only reason this ended up being a five cheese Macaroni Cheese was the simple fact that I had that many different cheeses in the fridge, the Iberico and Mozarella were both left over from making an Iberico and Grape Pizza recently, the rest are fridge staples that get put to use throughout the week in various different things. Because I was using up left-over cheese, the quantities for the Iberico and Mozarella shouldn't be taken too seriously. This is a very cheesy dish, so a little less or a little more - why not!
Stats
Serves: 4, with sides / accompaniments
Prep Time:30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 250g macaroni
- 50g butter
- 50g flour
- 500ml milk
- 3 rashers of smoked bacon, back or streaky
- 1/2 medium white onion
- 100g cheddar, grated
- 100g grated mozarella
- 60g iberico cheese, cubed into 1cm cubes
- 50g shropshire red cheese, grated
- 25g parmesan, grated
- 1/2 tsp english mustard
- 1/4 tsp sherry vinegar
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees fan
- Chop the onion into small pieces (roughly 0.5cm x 0.5cm), and the bacon into thin slices. If using back bacon, remove the fat from the edge if you want
- Cook the macaroni according to the instructions on the packet, knocking a minute or so off so that it's just a touch under-cooked
- Whilst the macaroni is cooking, melt the butter over a low heat in a saucepan that's big enough to take all milk later on
- When the butter is melted, add the flour, stir in and cook off for a few minutes
- Add the milk to the pan and mix in. You can either do this slowly, or add all the milk and whisk briskly to bring the white sauce together lump free
- Whilst the sauce is thickening over a medium heat (stir it well to stop it catching on the bottom of the pan), cook the bacon pieces in a small frying pan until they're cooked to your liking.
- Add the cheddar, parmesan, english mustard and sherry vinegar to the white sauce and stir well to combine then take the sauce off the heat
- When the bacon is cooked to your liking, add it to the sauce and soften the pieces of onion in the pan used for the bacon
- Once the onion has softened, add it, along with any fat in the pan to the sauce
- Mix the sauce together well to distribute the bacon and onion, then taste and season with salt and pepper if required
- Mix the drained macaroni together with the sauce and then pour it into a baking dish
- Add the iberico and mozarealla to the dish and give it a light mix in - try to not mix it too much so that the mozarella will give gooey strands when eaten
- Top the dish with the grated shropshire red and cook in the oven for 30 minutes, until the top is crisp, or you can't wait any longer!