Macarona bil-Bechamel

The béchamel is thinned so it sinks through the pasta instead of sitting on top as a lid.

Beef, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains beef, cheese whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

the pasta and meat

• 500 g penne
• 600 g minced beef
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons tomato purée
• 2 teaspoons ground allspice
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and black pepper

the béchamel

• 120 g butter
• 120 g plain flour
• 1.6 litres whole milk
• ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 2 egg yolks
• salt and white pepper

to finish

• 100 g hard cheese, grated

Method

1. THE BÉCHAMEL IS THINNED SO IT SINKS THROUGH THE PASTA INSTEAD OF SITTING ON TOP AS A LID. One point six litres of milk to a hundred and twenty grams each of butter and flour -- a noticeably looser sauce than a lasagne's, pourable rather than spoonable. Poured over the layered pasta it runs all the way down through the penne and fills the tubes themselves, so that when the dish is cut every piece of pasta is full of sauce rather than coated in it. A thick béchamel sits where it is put, bakes into a firm pale slab on the surface, and leaves dry pasta underneath. That difference is the whole dish.
2. THE PASTA IS UNDERCOOKED BY SEVERAL MINUTES. Two or three minutes short of the packet. It goes on absorbing the thin béchamel for forty minutes in the oven and will be soft by the end; boiled to al dente first it is mush when it comes out.
3. IT IS PENNE, STOOD AS LOOSELY AS POSSIBLE. Tubes, not sheets and not small shapes. The tubes are what fill with sauce, and packing them down tightly closes the channels the sauce needs to run through.
4. THE EGG YOLKS GO INTO THE BÉCHAMEL OFF THE HEAT. Two, tempered with a ladle of the hot sauce and stirred back in with the pan off the flame. They set the sauce in the oven so a thin béchamel still slices, and they give the top its golden colour. Added over heat they scramble.
5. THE MEAT LAYER GOES IN THE MIDDLE AND IS COOKED DRY. Browned hard, cooked until the pan is dry, and spread between two layers of pasta. Wet meat sauce plus thin béchamel gives a dish that will not hold a cut.
6. IT IS RESTED TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE CUTTING. Out of the oven and left alone. Cut hot, a thin-béchamel bake slumps on the plate; twenty minutes lets the egg-set sauce firm enough to hold a square.
7. The penne boiled 2 to 3 MINUTES SHORT of the packet time and drained.
8. The olive oil heated, the onions softened, the mince browned HARD, the purée and allspice added and cooked until the pan is DRY. Seasoned.
9. THE BÉCHAMEL: the butter melted, the flour cooked in it 2 MINUTES, then the milk whisked in gradually and cooked until it just coats a spoon -- THIN and POURABLE, not thick.
10. The nutmeg and seasoning added, the pan taken OFF THE HEAT, and the yolks tempered with a ladle of hot sauce and stirred back in.
11. A little béchamel in the base of a deep dish, then HALF the pasta, laid LOOSELY.
12. The meat spread over, then the rest of the pasta.
13. ALL the remaining béchamel poured over SLOWLY so it SINKS THROUGH, and the dish tapped to help it settle.
14. The grated cheese scattered on.
15. Baked at 180°C for 40 to 45 MINUTES, until deep gold.
16. RESTED 20 MINUTES before cutting.
17. TESTED: a cut piece should show sauce inside the pasta tubes, not just on top. A pale firm slab on the surface means the béchamel was too thick.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Egypt · All recipes