What is comfort food? There are so many
different types, and for me each person in my life provides a different recipe.
In fact, sometimes if it weren’t for the person cooking it, I probably wouldn’t
eat. (My grandmother’s roast, cooked far past well-done, comes to mind.)
True comfort food probably isn’t really
even cooked by you, for you. It’s made for you with great love and tenderness,
and without becoming melodramatic, you can taste it in the food. Take for
example Auntie Jo’s spaghetti sauce. I have tried to re-create it, my mother
has tried to re-create it, and it cannot be done. Only Jo can make this sauce. It’s
as simple as that. It’s probably also
the only food I would actually consider drinking a glass of milk with. I hate
milk, and yet somehow it just goes well with this meal.
Comfort food from my mum and dad are
totally different. For me, my mum’s comfort food is chicken potpie, her chilli
or, bizarrely, caprese salad. Salad has no place in comfort food, I know, but
at least this salad is full of cheese. From my dad, it’s definitely
cheeseburgers. Or store-bought tortellini with store-bought alfredo sauce,
heated up in the microwave. This was every other Friday night of my childhood,
and it was fantastic.
Being a big girl now, I occasionally have
to cook myself comfort food. Or, in other scenarios, cook it for others. I
always fall back to pasta when I need something stick-to-your-ribs style.
Lately, I’ve been into making homemade macaroni and cheese, and I promise that
when you do this, you’ll never go back to Kraft Dinner.
This is super easy and flexible, you can
make it as fancy or simple as you want, and you can go around knowing that if
something happens one day and you need to comfort someone, you can do it with
this recipe.
You need:
Pancetta (President’s Choice has a great
pre-chopped option, but smoked bacon works in a pinch too)
2-3 cheeses like cheddar, Asiago, Havarti,
etc. Grate about 2 cups of a variety of them
¼ cup panko breads crumbs
Equal parts fat and flour (some from the
pancetta, then a bit of butter)
½ - 1 cup of cream
1 can of tomatoes
Little scoop of smoked paprika
Little scoop of dry mustard powder
Little bit of garlic powder or onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste, plus a little
extra salt for your pasta water
Macaroni noodles, of course. I’d say about
half a bag for 4 people
Take none of those amounts too seriously. I
never measure anything; these are guesses from my head. Just try those amounts
and adjust as you go.
Start by getting your pasta water boiling.
Always salt this water, it flavours your pasta and is an important step. You’re
making this to comfort someone, so don’t cut corners! The water should taste
like the sea, and about 2 tbsp of salt at least.
In the meantime, grate the cheeses and
render the fat from the pancetta in another pot. Rendering fat means cook the
pancetta slowly enough that the fat starts to come out in the pot. We aren’t
going to drain this fat; we need it for flavour and to make the roux. (You
remember how to do that, don’t you? You learned how in Chicken Potpie.)
Keep an eye on that pasta, you really don’t
want to cook it all the way through. Cook it about half way, with a fair amount
of bite still left. While I think about that, grease a baking dish or several
ramekins and heat your oven to 375°. Drain your
pasta and concentrate on the cheese sauce now.
Macaroni and Cheese... In a ramekin, because I'm fresh like that. |
Cheese sauce is too easy to handle- I can’t
believe how long I had been making cheese sauce from a package, when all it
takes it a couple steps. Start with your roux- you’ve got some fat from the
pancetta in the pot, now add a scoop of butter and equal parts flour. We’re
talking about 2 tbsps each here. (For a better lesson on roux, visit Chicken Potpie) Stir that up and let the raw flour taste cook off.
At this point, add you canned tomatoes, almost
all the cheese (save a handful for the topping) and the dried spices. Also add
the cream. Stir until thickened. Taste your sauce and see if it needs anything.
No? Perf! Add it to the pasta and dump that into your ramekins or baking dish.
Almost done!
Finally, top your dish with the rest of the
cheese, panko, a sprinkle of paprika and maybe even some Parmesan. Bake in the
oven for twenty minutes, and then throw the broiler on for two minutes. Keep an
eye on it with the broiler… I always forget about things and burn the arse off
the top of my food. For a long time I didn’t have a toaster, I just broiled my
toast in the oven. I ate burnt toast almost every day for a year.
Wait until you taste this… You can also do
white cheeses with lobster instead of pancetta, you can do a smoky bacon with
Gouda and Havarti; the options are endless! And never be shy about adding more
chilli powder or hot sauce.
It’s time to banish Kraft Dinner from your
diet.
Sounds fabulous! next time you make it, call me, reach over from your balcony and hand me one of those oh so fresh ramekins..
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