The ultimate macaroni cheese recipe from an award-winning SA cookbook

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

1.4 litres fresh full-cream milk

100g butter

100g flour

500g mature Cheddar cheese, grated

Sea salt and white pepper

500g macaroni

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190˚C.
2. To make the white sauce, pour the milk into a small pot on medium heat and warm it to just below boiling point – you’ll see steam rising up from the surface and bubbles forming around the edge. This is called scalding the milk. Remove from the heat and put the lid on to keep it warm.
3. Melt the butter in a small pot over medium-low heat until it starts foaming. Whisk in the flour – at first it might smell like play dough. Now cook, whisking and putting your nose in the pot now and then, until it smells biscuity but is still the colour of shortbread. This could take 1 to 4 minutes.
4. Whisk in a little of the warm milk. Don’t be alarmed if it all seizes up into stodge as you do so! Just keep calm and carry on whisking, adding the rest of the milk a little at a time.
5. Once all the milk has been added, turn the heat up to medium-high to bring to the boil. Once it’s boiling, turn down to medium and keep going for 3 minutes.
6. Take the sauce off the heat and stir in 320g of cheese until it’s all melted. Season well and set aside. (If not using immediately, lay a piece of clingwrap directly onto the surface to prevent a skin forming. A skin is lumps just waiting to happen!)
7. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil, add the macaroni, bring back to the boil and cook for 5 to 6 minutes – it should be slightly underdone. Tip into a colander and drain well.
8. Return the pasta to the pot and fold through the sauce.
9. Tip the mixture into a baking dish (we use one that measures 25x25cm, and 5cm deep), smooth out so it’s even and sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese.
10. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 15 minutes, then briefly switch to grill until the top is golden brown and bubbling.

TIPS FOR THE PERFECT MAC 'N CHEESE:

• Undercook in the beginning: undercook the macaroni so it can still absorb some of the sauce and cook during baking without becoming flabby.
• Don’t overcook at the end: don’t bake the macaroni cheese for too long or at too high a heat or the cheese sauce will look curdled.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Cook. Better. is a cookbook that aims to help you do just that: become a better cook.

“Whether you’re just starting out or are more advanced but feel there might be gaps in your knowledge, this book is for you," says Nikki. "It’s about having an understanding, and the fact that you end up with a collection of ‘lifetime’ recipes is almost a happy co-incidence."

Cook. Better. was the first runner-up for Sunday Times Food Weekly’s Cookbook of the Year Award 2014 in association with Pick n Pay.