Sunday Dinner

Usually, Sunday dinner around here at Chez Chien Rouge is a roast chicken based on Alton Brown's recipe from EverDayCook. However, today it was instead a baked bacon macaroni and cheese served with halved cherry tomatoes. And it was excellent.

So, if you'd like to make it, here's a description of what I did.

First, I cooked 15 rashers of thick cut applewood smoked bacon. Most of this was destined for the wife's maple bacon cinnamon rolls, but that's another post (if you're lucky.) I cooked this to a very crispy state because it was going to be further cooked inside another dish, and would soften a bit in that process. I reserved the bacon grease for greasing the pan the final dish was baked in, the roux for the béchamel sauce, and toasting the panko bread crumb topping (the wife also got a couple of tablespoons for her rolls. But, again, that's another post.) Four of the rashers were crumbled into bacon bits to be mixed into the final dish.

The dish was somewhat based on Andrew Rea's recipe from Basics with Babish, because I knew it was adaptable, and I knew where to find it quickly. So, the next step was to toast a cup of panko in two tablespoons of reserved bacon grease until toasty brown.

Next a roux of two tablespoons bacon grease with an equal portion of flour and a bit of sea salt came together very quickly, and a béchamel was made with a cup of whole milk. Once this came together, I added four ounces each of Monterey Jack, Sharp Cheddar, and Pecarino Romano cheeses to make a cheese sauce, and then incorporated the bacon bits, and a bit of freshly ground black pepper.

Once I had parboiled the elbow macaroni (two minutes shorter than the directions on the package called for) I combined that with the sauce in a large bowl. This was poured into a large glass baking dish that had been greased with some of the reserved bacon grease. Then that was topped with the toasted panko mixed with another 2 ounces of shredded Pecarino Romano. This was covered with foil, and baked at 450° for 10 minutes, and then another 10 uncovered.

Coming out of the oven, it was bubbling so nicely, and looked fantastic.

This was shared with the wife, The Pup, and my sister who comes over for dinner most Sundays. There were no complaints. In fact, the wife said "We've decided: you have to do this again." I think that counts as a win. Especially when they are usually raving over the chicken, it's gravy, and the mashed potatoes with a vegetable side we usually have.

There are a few changes I would make for the next time though. I would be sure to only lightly grease the baking vessel. I would also increase the amount of milk in the sauce. It was barely present in the final dish.

Anyway, it was good enough, and novel enough that I wanted to document this. Hope you enjoy.