If you combine the popular Mac&Cheese recipe (macaroni and cheese) with a beef ragù, you end up with a dish as tasty as the one Juana brings us today, from La Cocina de Babel. I promise you'll be a hit!
Although at this time of year our bodies ask for fresher, lighter meals, at my house we don't give up on heartier dishes. Comfort cooking for the whole family because it's loved equally by kids and adults. Dishes that require low heat and, with the pace of life most of us lead, can sometimes be hard to prepare due to lack of time.
Today I present to you the well-known classic Mac & cheese, but with a small twist, a delicious beef ragù hidden under the thick layer of pasta with cheese sauce that will delight the whole family and, moreover, with the great advantage that the ragù, which is a dish that calls for long cooking times, this time I prepared it in my WMF pressure cooker.
Home flavors, simple meals and everything ready in very little time, because being in a hurry doesn't mean you have to give up eating well, right?
WMF Perfect pressure cooker and Rösle Copper Shallow Casserole
Ingredients (for about six people)
For the ragù:
- 1Kg of stewing beef. I used shin, one of the cuts I like most and find tender for stewing, although I've occasionally made it with chuck
- 200gr of flour
- Olive oil
- 1 onion
- 2 carrots
- 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 200ml of beef stock
- 200ml of red wine
- 200ml of passata
- Salt and pepper
For the Mac & Cheese:
- 50gr of butter
- 50gr of flour
- 1 liter of milk
- 1 teaspoon of mustard powder
- 200gr of grated cheddar
- 200gr of grated emmental
- 250gr of macaroni or any short pasta
Rösle copper saucepan, WMF Perfect pressure cooker and Pallarès carbon steel knife
Preparation
- Place the flour in a bowl large enough. On a wooden board and with a knife very sharp, cut the meat into pieces about three centimeters, peel and slice the carrots and finely chop the onion. Reserve everything in individual bowls or mini-cocottes.
- Heat a little oil in our WMF pressure cooker, just enough to cover the base. Flour the meat, shaking off the excess, and brown in batches in the hot oil.
- Once all the meat is browned, return it to our WMF cooker along with the onion and carrot. Sauté everything for a few minutes and add the tomato paste, stock, wine and passata. Season with salt and pepper and close the cooker.
- Bring the cooker to high heat and wait until the two rings on the cooker are visible; from that moment the cooker must be kept on the heat for 20 minutes, at which point cooking will be finished. It is important that the two rings remain visible during that entire time; if we see them drop, the heat may not be strong enough.
- Meanwhile, prepare the cheese sauce by melting the butter in a saucepan with a thick base. Once melted, add the flour while stirring with a wooden spoon so that no lumps form for about three minutes. We add the milk little by little until it is well integrated with the flour and butter mixture. We bring the sauce to a boil and, when it begins to thicken slightly (this sauce is very light), we add the mustard and cheeses, stirring the Set so that these melt completely. Set aside.
- In a pot heat plenty of water and cook the pasta “al dente” according to the manufacturer's instructions, drain and add it to the cheese sauce you reserved.
- Once the ragù's cooking time is up, turn off the heat and wait for the cooker's control rings to drop completely. If you're in a hurry one option to release the pressure is to slide the cooking valve very slowly to the open position and once the rings have dropped and no more steam comes out, shake the cooker and open it.
- In an ovenproof dish place the ragù and cover it with the macaroni with cheese sauce. Bake at 180º for about 20 minutes, or until the surface looks nicely golden and bubbly.
(Left.) Tokyo Studio porcelain bowl and WMF Perfect pressure cooker; (Right.) Rösle copper saucepan
