The dish makes for a great weeknight meal
TV chef Rick Stein(Image: Neil Reading)
Celebrity chef Rick Stein has shared his recipe for the classic Italian dish, mac and cheese – implementing a secret a stranger once revealed to him.
On the BBC Food website, where the recipe was originally published, he said: “Someone I met in Palermo once told me that the secret of good Italian dishes is ‘esagera’ – put more of everything in – and so it is with this mac and cheese recipe. There’s masses of cheese and plenty of smoked bacon.”
The dish serves six to eight people and takes between 30 minutes and an hour to cook, making it a top contender for a family weeknight meal.
To make it, you will need a 35x20cm ovenproof dish.
To begin, preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6 and grease your ovenproof dish.
Melt 100g butter in a large saucepan over a low heat. Stir in 100g plain flour and cook for one minute.
Add one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, take the pan off the heat and gradually whisk in 1.2L full-fat milk and 75ml double cream. Add one bay leaf.
Put the pan back over the heat, stirring constantly, until it boils and thickens.
Take the pan off the heat again, remove the bay leaf and add 400g mature grated cheddar. Stir until the cheese has melted.
Season with lots of black pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and stir in 500g dried macaroni. Cook for 10 minutes, or until al dente, drain well and add to the sauce.
Fry 100g smoked bacon lardons in a frying pan until crisp. Stir into the macaroni cheese and pour the mixture into the ovenproof dish.
Mix 60g white breadcrumbs with the 50g grated and scatter over the top.
Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until golden-brown and bubbling. Serve immediately.
Rick graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English and spent a few years running a disco before buying a nightclub in Padstow.
Rick later opened a restaurant that specialised in fish (supplied by the fishermen who had once frequented his club). He has now run the Seafood Restaurant for more than 25 years.
The Steins have since added other local restaurants, shops and a takeaway to their Padstow venture.
Rick has been received many awards for his work as a chef, teacher, presenter and author. He cooked twice for Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street, as well as for the former French president Jacques Chirac and for Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip.
In January 2003, Rick was awarded an OBE for services to West Country tourism.
For more dishes you can make at home, see our ‘recipes’ page.
Dining and Cooking