Gowings Bar & Grill’s Truffle Mac & Cheese

We may be in lockdown, but we’re making the best of Gowings available at home.

Lockdown life calls for a large serving of comfort that’s 100% indulgent. The kind which has you heavy breathing at the thought of the smell of rich truffle goodness, melting with Taleggio, Parmesan, Mozzarella and Asiago Cheeses.

Forget sourdough and the banana bread, the whole of your existence is now dedicated to recreating Gowings Bar & Grill’s Truffle Mac & Cheese.

A two-part recipe, minimal(ish) steps, an ingredients list you can recognise (pantry staples for the win), and a short essential shop later…

This one’s for discerning palettes who are prone to disheveling in the kitchen.

 

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Béchamel Sauce 

What you’ll need, and what you’ll probably already have:

500ml Milk
1 Brown onion (halved)
2 Fresh bay leaves
40g Butter
2 Tbs Plain flour
Pinch ground nutmeg
Salt & ground white pepper
Cloves

Method:
Combine the milk, onion & bay leaves in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and set aside for 15 minutes to infuse.

Strain milk mixture through a fine sieve into a large jug. Discard solids.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat until foaming. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until mixture bubbles and begins to come away from side of pan. (When making a sauce that contains flour, it’s important to cook the flour. If you don’t, the sauce will taste floury and may have a grainy texture.) Remove from heat.

Pour in half the milk gradually, whisking constantly with a balloon whisk until mixture is smooth. Gradually add the remaining milk, whisking until smooth and combined.

Place saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Remove from heat. Taste and season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Truffle Mac & Cheese

What else you’ll need, and we’ll be really impressed if you have already have:

100ml Béchamel Sauce (as per above)
1 Tbs Black Truffle Paste
20g Taleggio Cheese
20g Parmesan Cheese
20g Mozzarella Cheese
20g Asiago Cheese
5g Parsley – chopped
10g Panko crumbs
150g Gnocchi shell pasta

 

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Method:
In a small sauce pan heat up the béchamel sauce.

Add all of the cheeses, truffle paste, parsley and cooked pasta – toss until pasta is evenly coated.

Place into cast iron dish and top with panko crumbs, parmesan cheese and bake in the oven for 7 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.

Garnish with grated truffle to impress your partner, housemates and pet, Mittens who’s been circling the kitchen since you started making this recipe.

Then, indulge.

Instagram has us normalizing all sorts of things, and one we absolutely get around, FOOD PORN. How about getting snap, tag (@qthotels) and post happy so we can support with all the Likes, *drooling* and *heart eye* emojis, and so forth.

 

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