An American favourite. I have a hand written version of the one my mom used to make (from the 1965 version of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, minus the onions, ewww), but over the years I’ve added and changed and altered the original recipe to suit the ingedients I can find in Australia. Cheese is quite different here and for whatever reason, there is no such thing as elbow macaroni.
3 cups shell pasta (small)
2 cups extra tasty cheese, grated (grate it youself, buying the pre-grated stuff makes the sauce separate weirdly, I think because of the addatives to keep it from sticking)
1/3 cup unsalted butter (the cheese and the soup can be quite salty…)
1/3 cup plain flour
1 can (1 and 1/3 cup) Campbell’s condensed cream of celery soup (or make your own)
1 and 1/2 to 2 cups whole milk (depend on how thick you like your sauce)
pepper to taste
slices of cheese for the top
First, bring a pot of water to the boil and add two or three teaspoons of salt and cook the pasta. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Drain the pasta and leave it to one side while you make the sauce. In the still warm pasta pot on a low flame, melt the butter and add the flour, stirring to combine. Once the butter is melted add the can of soup and combine. If using homemade soup, it will be more watery, so do not add it all at once, dribble it in slowly while stirring continuously. The aim is to make a bechamel sauce that thickens slowly. Add the whole milk slowly and pepper to taste. Once it is as thick as you would like, take the sauce off the flame and add the cheese. Stir together and add the cooked pasta. Pour into a 20cm x 20cm (8″ x 12″) baking dish. Smooth the top and lie the slices of cheese over the top, not touching, maybe a centimetre apart. Bake for 40 minutes, remove from oven and let cool for at least ten minutes before serving (the cheese is MOLTEN LAVA). Serve with lima beans, baby peas or spinach.
Dr Maggie J Watson 