Cheesy Pasta

And I keep working through Nigel Slater's Real Food...

This time, Pasta with Four Cheeses.

Now, we've tried countless baked, multi-cheese pasta dishes in the past. And I usually have the same problems with them: cheeses don't blend, too heavy, etc.

But not this one. Slater's baked pasta was perfect.

I'm not idly throwing superlatives around here. This was truly the best baked cheese pasta I've tasted.

Cook tube pasta, about nine minutes (actually a little more 'done' than I care for, but I went with the flow). Drain lightly, return pasta to pan, and melt a little over a half stick (!) of butter, tossing the pasta till shiny. To this, add almost-equal amounts of Gruyere, Fontina, Gorgonzola and Parmesan; add some salt and pepper, and a bit of cream. Stir it all up, and dump into a shallow baking dish (rather unceremoniously, in my case). Bake until cheese melts.



It may not look like much here (pale pasta and pale cheese; what chance does it have? Demille would struggle to make it look good), but my goodness; what a dish!

The Gruyere and Gorgonzola were the most prominent flavors, not surprisingly. And while it was very filling (I put about a third of mine back), it was not heavy.

As Matt put it: "This doesn't suck."

Only four or five more meals to work through, then it's on to Monastery Salads!