I’ve had a hankering for macaroni-and-cheese for a couple weeks now, so last night the Snook and I decided to try out Delia’s recipe for Souffleed Macaroni Cheese. She describes it as the “best ever,” which sounded pretty good to us. It’s a rather involved process though, and sometimes Delia’s instructions can sound a bit condescending. (For example, she specifies how much water to boil your noodles in.) Our only real problem was that the baking dish we’d heated up was much too small for the volume of pasta we’d prepared. So 2/3 of it went into a nice heated Pyrex baking dish, and the rest went into a cold casserole. If any of you are thinking of trying it out, I’d suggest you go for the biggest, flattest dish you have. You want as much surface area as possible, because the crust is the absolute best part of this dish. The macaroni itself was okay; I’m not a huge fan of Gruyère. But the puffy, crispy, salty (thanks to the Parmigiano) crust is really what makes this special. I’m sorry I don’t have a picture – we dug into it as soon as it came out of the oven! (Another tip: When Delia says “generous” portions, she means it. I doubled the recipe thinking I’d freeze the extra two servings, but really it made like six. And those are six Kristy servings, which really are generous.) So overall I’d probably give this recipe a 7 out of 10. Next time I might try a different cheese and see if that makes a difference…
