Growing up this was my favourite dish. My mum used to make it every Sunday for me.
After an entire week of swimming training and a weekend filled with galas and swim meets this is just what the doctor ordered that my body needed to recover.
I used to patiently wait for the early Sunday morning swimming drills to be over just to rush home and smell the cheesey deliciousness.
10 years later I have not set foot in a pool again. How time changes things. I like to sometimes look at the photos, the medals, the ribbons and all the photos’ I look so different I had short hair way back then, it was so easy to maintain when you spent most of your holidays on a swim team bus travelling around the country. For those of you who are wondering what I am on about. In my hey days I used to be an Eastern Province swimmer.
Ingredients:
- 500g x mice.
- 30ml x cooking oil.
- 2 x onions chopped.
- 1 x clove of garlic, chopped.
- 50ml x tomatoe paste.
- 1 x tsp salt.
- Black pepper.
- 1ml x cinnamon powder.
- 5ml x dried thyme.
- 1ml x grated nutmeg.
- 25ml x margarine.
- 25ml x cake flour.
- 500ml x milk.
- Pinch of cayenne pepper.
- 100g x grated cheddar cheese.
- 250ml x plain yoghurt.
- 250g x cooked macaroni.
Method:
- Fry the mince in a heated pot with the cooking oil, until it turns colour, make sure there are no lumps and if lumps of mince do start forming break them up.
- Add the onion, garlic and sauté till the onion becomes transparent.
- Add the tomatoe paste and sprinkle the spices over.
- Fry for a few minutes to allow the spices to infuse and then remove from the stove and set aside.
- Melt the margarine in a separate pot over a low heat.
- Add the flour, mix well and allow to fry for a few minutes. This mixture is called a roux.
- Gradually add the milk to the roux.
- Add half the cheese and season with a pinch of salt and cayenne pepper.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the yoghurt.
- Place the macaroni in an oven proof dish and pour over half the sauce.
- Spoon the mince mixture over, followed by the remaining white sauce.
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese over and bake at 180 degrees for 30 minutes or until the cheese is nice and crispy.