Bajan Macaroni Pie

While visiting Barbados last year, this dish was one of my favorite memories.  Below are pictures I took of it while there.  I decided it was time to make it.  I was able to order in fresh made bucatini from the farmer's market, so gave this a whirl tonight.  It is my understanding that every family has their own take on it, so I did my own too after perusing a few recipes...

Mac pie with Bill fish

The star of the show!

Served up with Bajan BBQ chicken and Kingfish

• 500 grams fresh bucatini (use only 250 grams of dried if using)
• 4 cups old cheddar cheese, grated, 1 cup for topping
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 354 ml can evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup pasta water
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1 teaspoon Colman's dried mustard
• 1 small onion, grated
• 1 egg, beaten
• Fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt, to taste
• Bajan pepper sauce, to taste
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 350°F.  In a medium saucepan, bring salted water to boil and add pasta. Boil until cooked but firm, about 4-5 minutes.  Drain reserving one cup of water.  Make roux in pan with melted butter and flour.  Whisk in milk.  Combine with handfuls of cheese until creamy.

Add pasta water, ketchup, mustard, onion, S&P, hot sauce and egg, making sure to whisk until well combined first.

Stir in noodles.  Pour into a 9" x 9" greased dish.  It looked like Velveeta cheese below...

Top with grated cheese and panko.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.  I broiled mine to brown it more.

Let sit for 5 minutes.  Serve.  OMG, I saw a carb coma coming in the future... this was decadent, rich and filling.  It wasn't as tomatoey as I recall in Barbados.  Maybe tomato paste instead of ketchup next time?  I can't complain about it.  I would have loved to see this prepared by a local family or the chef at my resort, in hindsight.  Loved the onion flavor in this.  Glad I added it.

I'm going to say that the fresh pasta wasn't exactly 500 grams, nor as fresh as I had hoped. When cooking, a bit of it was hard so I lost even more when I threw it out.  I needed about a third more than what I used and then I think it would have been perfect.  I'll do this again, but use the dried bucatini next time to be more precise.  Also, I'll leave the panko off.  We like it, but I don't recall ever noticing crumb topping there.  If anyone Bajan reads this, please offer your advice in the comments!  After all was said and done, this was not your average mac n cheese, it was better though it didn't take me back to Barbados, unfortunately.