Baked Macaroni

Ingredients:
Ingredients :
225 g. of macaroni (you can use penne or ziti as well)
3 tbsps. of butter
3 tbsps. of olive oil
1/4 kg. of ground beef (sirloin, if you want minimal fat)
1/4 kg. of smoked ham or bacon, or salami or pepperoni (sliced as thinly as you can) <-- ayeen's notes: because im a huge bacon fan, i use smoked bacon
1/4 kg. of fresh button mushrooms, sliced <-- ayeen's notes: i just buy those canned or bottled sliced mushrooms
1/4 kg. of tomatoes, chopped
1/4 kg. of onions, chopped
4-5 green or red bell peppers (or 6-8 pimientoes), cored and chopped
1 whole garlic, peeled and finely minced
1/2 c. of tomato paste
3-4 c. of good meat broth
a bunch of fresh basil leaves, chopped, or about a teasponful of dried basil leaves
salt
pepper
sugar

Optional (but highly recommended):
garlic toast

For the topping :

1/3 c. of butter
3 tbsps. of flour
2 c. of milk
1 c. of water
half of a 225 g. block of quickmelt (processed) cheese, softened then cut into small pieces <-- ayeen's notes: if i get too lazy to go to a filipino store, i just use those cheese that says easy melt on the label
half of a 225 g. block of cream cheese, softened then cut into small pieces
salt
pepper

Directions:
Pasta:
Cook the pasta according to package directions, undercooking by about 5 minutes. Again, this will allow the pasta to finish cooking in the sauce, absorbing the flavors. Drain, rinse and set aside.


Pasta Sauce:
ayeen's notes: Basically just do however you make spaghetti sauce or you can just buy Ragu and add some beef and veggies to it or you can follow these:

Heat the butter and olive oil together over medium-high heat in a sauce pan. Add the ground beef, breaking up the lumps. Add the garlic and cook until the meat starts to brown. Add the ham, bacon, salami or pepperoni. Stir and cook for a few minutes. Add all the chopped vegetables and cook, stirring, until the vegetables start to soften. Add the tomato paste and stir. Pour in the meat broth. Season with salt, pepper and some sugar. The sugar will neutralize the acidity of the tomato paste. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.


Sauce Topping:
While the sauce simmers, prepare the cream-cheese topping. Melt the butter in a saucepan. When frothy, add the flour all at once, stirring. Let the flour cook for about 5 minutes to remove any floury taste in the cooked topping. Usually, the flour is cooked when the mixture starts to turn golden brown. Pour in the water in a thin stream, stirring as you do. The mixture will be lumpy at this stage. Pour in the milk slowly, again, stirring as you pour. By the time all the milk has been incorporated into the mixture, it will appear to be a little thin. Don’t worry, the cheeses will thicken them to the required consistency. Add the cheeses. Set the heat to low and let the cheeses melt, stirring the mixture occasionally. Turn off the heat and season with salt and pepper.


Baking time:
When the sauce is done, add the cooked pasta and toss well. Let the mixture cook over low heat with an occasional stirring. This should allow the pasta to finish cooking. Usually, this step takes about 5-6 minutes.

Pour the pasta and sauce into a baking dish. Make sure that the dish is large enough so that the mixture is an inch below the rim. You will still be adding the topping. Everything will simmer and bubble during baking and you don’t want the sauce and topping falling onto the oven floor.

Pour the topping onto the pasta mixture, spreading to seal the edges. If you don’t seal the edges, the exposed pasta will dry up during baking.

Bake in a preheated 180C (350F) oven for 20-25 (or 400F for 15-20min) minutes or until the top is lightly browned. How brown depends on you. A well-browned topping is more aromatic and attractive but, if there are leftovers, the topping does have a tendency to get overbrowned during reheating.

Let the baked macaroni rest for about 10 minutes before cutting. Serve with garlic sticks or buttered toast.


Side story:
I get a lot of compliments whenever I make this. We call this Baked Mac in the Philippines and I consider this a real treat whenever they would serve this on birthdays or whatever occassions. One time I was craving for this and was surprised that this is not common here. They do have Baked Mac but they don't make it the way Filipinos do. So anyway, being the foodie that I am, I hate it when I crave for something and I don't know where to get it and that's how I started making Baked Mac.

I've made Baked Mac several times already. Unfortunately, I always got lazy to post the recipe because I don't have a nice photo to show off my baked mac yet, lol. I made one again during my advance birthday celebration 3 weeks ago and this time I made sure I was able to take some good photos before serving it to my guests.

Aight, enough babbling, here's the recipe. Oh, and by the way, I got this from pinoycook.net but as usual I would add some stuff to make it my own which i can't share (but i will if you're nice to me, LOL), otherwise you'll never go wrong following this recipe.
/marlin

source: http://pinoycook.net/baked-macaroni/2/