Japexican On the GO!: Comfort food. Mac and Cheese

For the most part, I tend to eat and cook rather healthy. I mean, I try, the most delicious foods in the world are far from healthy. And every now and then (and to be honest, more often than not) I like treating myself to something delicious, and fattening. Needless to say, I am a sucker for creamy/cheesy things.

Mac & Cheese holds a special place in my memory. And I'm actually talking about the orange and radioactive barely resembling cheese deliciousness that comes in a blue box. An orange powder that somehow is reconstituted into a luscious sauce, it is like magic. That was one of the first things my mother allowed me to cook, and somehow it became some sort of a Sunday afternoon treat. Just the thought of it brings me happy memories of simpler times. And I still eat those bad boys from time to time, just when I feel really homesick, however they are filled with sodium and other nasty stuff, so instead of that, I came up with this recipe, using all natural ingredients and top quality cheese, this is one mother fucker you really don’t want to miss. Enjoy my Mac & Cheese with Spanish Butifarra.

You will need:

Salt: Just a few pinches here and there.
Pepper: You want to be generous with the pepper.
Flour: 3 Tablespoons of all purpose flour, nothing special.
Butter: 4 Tablespoons of good grass-fed butter.
Milk: 2 cups, whole milk will produce the best results, you can use semi-skimmed, but don’t go for the fully skimmed and for the love of god don't you use any of those lactose-free, omega-6 enriched milk, keep it to the basics.
Cheeses: 200 gr. of any combination of cheeses you fancy. In this case I decided to combine a good Scottish sharp Cheddar and some Emmental. Completely your choice. Grated.
Pasta: 200 - 300 gr. Of any pasta you like. It works even for spaghetti but I really like the smaller kind that you can take with your spoon.
Onion: 1/4 of an onion. Grated.
Garlic: 1 big clove. Grated. If you really like garlic, by all means add more.
Butifarra: 4 big and juicy Butifarra. These are mildly spiced pork sausages from Spain, any kind of sausage would work nicely here.

The ingredients.

Lets get to it!

* This is actually a master cheese sauce that can be used for anything, I actually have used this poured over nachos instead of the radioactive yellow 'cheddar' commonly used for Nachos, and works great. Truth be told this I simple as fuck, it is, in fact just a simple béchamel with a lot of cheese inside. So, also, if you remove the cheese, onion and garlic from the procedure you have a béchamel that can be used for any other things.

Grate the onion and garlic, you can chop them very finely too but I find that the flavours blend better with the sauce when they are grated.
Poke your Butifarra with a toothpick all around and place on a baking dish, bake at 180ªC while you are cooking.
Melt the butter in a pot at medium high heat. Add a dash of olive oil to prevent the butter from burning. Once it is hot, and starting to bubble, add the onion and garlic and cook until they start getting very transparent.
Cook your pasta until 'al dente', remember to salt the water. Take a cup of the cooking water in case you want to water down your sauce later.
Heat the milk in a pot to just above boiling and have it ready.
Now is time to sprinkle the flour over the butter while constantly moving. A paste of sort will be formed with the butter and flour, keep moving, don’t let it burn. We are looking to get rid of the raw flour taste. After 6-7 minutes the mix will be a light golden color, it is time for the next step.
Add the hot milk one cup at the time while vigorously whisking, until you get a very smooth and thick liquid. Cook for 5 minutes whisking constantly. Season with salt and pepper.
Add the grated cheese a little at a time constantly whisking, once the cheese was melted and incorporated to the sauce, cook for another 3-5 minutes constantly stirring.
Add the pasta and see how thick you want your sauce, water down with the pasta water.
Wait until the Butifarra are golden brown and ready to serve.
Serve with a generous serving of freshly ground pepper.
Bahm! Enjoy! Thank me later.