Baked cavatappi with bacon and blue cheese: Daily Maverick recipe
Daily Maverick published a recipe for baked cavatappi spiral pasta in a cheese sauce with bacon, fried onion, garlic and blue cheese. The dish makes four to six servings, although the author notes that in his family it was eaten by two people, with some left over.
To prepare it, you need 250 g of cavatappi — spiral-shaped pasta. It should be boiled until al dente. The author advises stirring the pasta immediately after adding it to boiling water so that it does not stick together, and adding a little olive oil and mixing after draining.
Cheese sauce with bacon
The basis of the dish is a béchamel sauce made with 1 litre of whole milk, three tablespoons of butter and the same amount of flour. The milk is heated with a bay leaf, a pinch of ground nutmeg, salt and white pepper, then gradually added to the butter-and-flour mixture. The sauce must be stirred continuously over low heat until it thickens.
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Two cups of grated cheddar and 100 g of soft blue cheese are added to the finished béchamel. A finely chopped white onion with two cloves of garlic is fried separately, along with 200 g of bacon pieces until crisp. These ingredients are mixed with the cheese sauce.
Baking and serving
A dish with a capacity of about 2–2.5 litres is greased with butter. The cheese sauce is placed in it, carefully mixed with the cooked pasta and sprinkled with additional grated cheddar. The dish is baked at 180 °C for 30–40 minutes, until the cheese on top turns golden.
After removing it from the oven, it is recommended to leave the bake for 20 minutes. Immediately after baking, the sauce will be runny, but after resting the dish will be easier to divide into neat portions. If desired, the finished pasta can be garnished with microgreens or served with a simple salad.
