Bacon Lasagne

by Barry Lewis

Ingredients

24 strips of bacon
small tub of smoked paprika
1 yellow pepper, 1 red onion, 2 garlic cloves, handful fresh parsley,
2tbsp butter, 1tsp mustard powder,
3tbsp plain flour, 500ml milk (2.1 cups),
250g cheddar cheese (2 cups), 50g parmesan (1/2 cup),
100g red leicester cheese, grated (1 cup)
4 eggs (optional)

In this video it is my second recipe for Hybrid recipe Month – this one is a Bacon Macsagne, basically a bacon lasagne with macaroni and cheese filling & egg topping! I have to say this is up there with one of the most unusually tasty things I have ever made, it just worked, even with the baked egg on top, although of course this can be optional.

Start off by rubbing the bacon in paprika and frying in olive oil until browned both sides (around 3-4 minutes each side). Place on kitchen towel to catch any excess fat whilst you cook the remaining bacon. The oil in the pan turns a lovely deep orange and has a chorizo style oil feel to it and we will use it again immediately.

Keeping the pan warm add in the chopped red onion, cook for a couple of minutes to soften up and get stained in the oil, then chuck in the pepper alongside to blister in the pan. Around ten minutes in total should do it, for the final 2 minutes add the chopped garlic cloves and then tip all into a bowl, stir through a handful of freshly chopped parsley and allow to cool to one side.

Cook your macaroni to package instructions. Meanwhile while that is cooking, melt the butter in a saucepan, once melted on a low flame add in the flour and mustard powder, it will immediately stiffen up like when making choux pastry, cook this for no longer than a minute as it can burn the pan very easily. Top up with the milk and continue whisking over the low flame for around five minutes until thickened, you can then take off the heat and add in the cheddar cheese and the parmesan, put this in and whisk through it should melt in from the heat of the pan.

Drain off the macaroni and then combine it in the pan with the cheese sauce and the onion mixture. Stir well.

In a baking dish lay down some good spoonfuls of the macaroni and cheese, then top with the grated red leicester cheese. Strips of bacon follow on top, to replicate lasagne sheets, then simply repeat those steps until you are at the top.

The eggs on top are optional but if you are doing it make a little impression in the 4 corners for the yolk to sit in, the after cracking an egg lift the yolk out with a spoon and place in each impression. Then dribble over the egg white. Place carefully in the oven for 15 minutes at gas mark 6 or equivalent see cooking temperature conversion chart (or until egg is fully cooked, it must be all white and cooked through), then remove and serve.

That’s it I really hope you like this hybrid recipe bacon lasagne! I loved it as I hope you can tell in the video, if you missed the last hybrid recipe ‘The chouxrrito’ give that a try too!