A third post in one week! I took the entire past week off of work which means I had plenty to time to prepare lots of good food. Today's dish is from Barbados, and is delicious, filling, comforting, etc. Basically all the good things. It's called macaroni pie, and it's very similar to the macaroni and cheese that people in the American South eat. My family makes a simpler version of this for various food-centered holidays.
One big difference is that Bajan cooks do not use the elbow macaroni that I'm used to. They actually use tubed macaroni and break it up into smaller pieces. I used rotini because I read in one recipe that it works well.
They also use some grated or finely diced onion to amp up the flavor. I decided to just throw mine in the food processor, which saved a lot of time and tears.
Another "secret" ingredient is a mix of ketchup and mustard, which gives it a nice orange-y color (not the cheese). Since I don't eat ketchup and was not willing to buy a bottle for one recipe then never use it again, I just thinned some tomato paste with a bit of water.
The cheese I used for this was actually a blend of two cheddars that I had left over in my fridge. I imagine any kind of cheddar would work well, but I believe that true Bajan macaroni pie would not use orange-colored cheese. I'm not a fan of those either. One of the cheeses I had was an Irish cheddar, harder and drier. The other was good ol' Vermont sharp cheddar, softer and creamier.
Once the pasta is cooked until just tender, it's mixed with the ketchup and mustard along with some milk, the onions, salt and pepper, an egg, and most of the cheese.
All of that goes into a greased baking dish and topped with more cheese. Since I dumped all my cheese in with the pasta mixture, I ended up shredding a small chunk of gruyère that I needed to use up. Gruyère has almost a nutty flavor to it, which actually worked really well as the topping, since it added a little more depth of flavor.
It's then baked until it's golden brown. I put mine under the broiler for a minute or so just to get more of that gooey cheese on top browned. Mmmm gooey cheese.
See that brown bit at the bottom? That's part of a crispy cheese edge, and it's God's gift to mankind. My favorite piece of baked mac n cheese is always the corner piece, because you get the most of that crispy, almost burnt cheese. Ugh, so good.
I added some thyme on top, but it can also be baked in with other herbs and spices. Some macaroni pie holds its shape pretty well when you cut a slice, but others are a little gooey-er. Mine was not super firm like I'm used to with baked mac n cheese, but I probably cut it before it had enough time to set. I just re-heated another slice that had been in the fridge over night and it was much firmer, more like the pictures I've seen. Also, it was somehow even better the next day. Chris gave this dish a 9.5/10, saying that it was probably one of the best things I've made for this project. He usually describes everything as "pretty good" so that's high praise.
Recipes Used: Macaroni Pie
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