I've never been want to pick out food and call it my favourite because I am what you would label there a foodie so I like and eat basically everything. But if there was something I would eat any day at any time, it would be macaroni and cheese. This is something you would rarely see in a Nigerian home because most of the time, we prefer our macaroni with stew. I had my first taste of macaroni and cheese when my family went to visit my uncle's for Christmas I think in 2018. My uncle's wife was visiting from the UK (he married out) and for this particular day she was in charge of making the meals.
Now you wouldn't expect her to make any of our local dishes although she had attempted to try but my uncle refused so she decided to make macaroni and cheese. I wasn't interested because sometimes you tend to get scared of new things especially when it comes to food and there's no meat involved. I didn't stay to see how she made it because quite frankly I wasn't that into it, I mean macaroni and cheese.. yuck
Fast forward to when the dish was served,we were seated at the table, all of us, staring at what she seemed to call food. everything in the plate look melted, look like porridge unless you dig into it and see macaroni beneath the cheesy surface. After much resistance, everybody had to take a bite at least to show we cared for her efforts and boy did my mind explode when I did.
First, it was spicy, I wasn't expecting it to be, I love spicy food. and the way the cheese blended with the macaroni....Omo. I could almost taste it again. What I thought was an unusual match became a match made in heaven. I just knew I had to learn to make it myself. Nobody else would make it for me when she was gone so I watched a ton of YouTube videos and after many many many failed attempts, I finally found myself a recipe. Now I'm not good with measurements so I'd just list out the ingredients.
Macaroni (of course)
Salt and pepper
Little flour
Cheese(I prefer Cheddar)
Milk(Liquid)
Butter
Onion and Paprika..(I add maggi sometimes)
I like to mix the ingredients together before I boil the macaroni so it doesn't go cold and stiff. I start by adding the butter to a frypan and wait till it's melted (no particular measurements but don't use much) and then I add the flour and pepper to the melted butter and stir. I try to stir enough that it doesn't have any lump. Continue to stir so it doesn't burn. When there are no lumps, you would want to add the milk to the mixture and continue to stir and then I add my spices, salt, maggi, paprika and onion(some add more spices but I've not experimented that far, I'm quite satisfied with the way I do it for now). Taste it at this point, if it still tastes like flour, try to leave it to boil a bit.
When you have a mixture that looks like this
Proceed to add your cheese to the mixture, everything done on low heat. Stir it until you have a plain mixture with no lump. I usually keep that aside and proceed to boil the macaroni but don't boil it too much, we want it to be soft but not too soft so we don't get a soggy meal. When this is done, proceed to add the macaroni to the mixture and stir it.
Leave it to cook a little (low heat). If you follow this instructions carefully, you should have something like this
I usually add shredded spiced up boiled beef just as I add the macaroni to the mixture before everything comes together if I want to have the chewy feeling and let's face it, you can never go wrong with meat if you're not vegan.
If you've had macaroni and cheese before, this shouldn't be new to you but if you haven't, you should try it and I'm sure you'd love it. You can check up more ways to make it and have your own unique style. That's all for now on my favourite dish