John’s truffled macaroni & smoked haddock bake

QI’ve never been a fan of pasta bakes, with one exception – my favourite truffle mac and cheese recipe. I’ve added a smoky hit of haddock here and the end result blew me away. This can be assembled in advance and finished in the oven the next day or even a couple of days later.

Prep 25 mins

QCook 1 hr

FOR THE MACARONI

250g macaroni

1 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

500ml milk

300g smoked haddock

1 tbsp truffle oil, plus extra to drizzle 50g softened butter, plus extra

for the dish

25g plain flour

100g gruyère, coarsely grated

FOR THE BREADCRUMBS

50g white breadcrumbs small bunch each of parsley and

tarragon, leaves picked small thyme sprig, leaves picked 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped small knob of butter drizzle of truffle oil, plus extra to serve

1 Blitz all the ingredients for the breadcrumbs together in a food processor until roughly chopped, then season, and set aside. Cook the macaroni in boiling water for 1 min less than the pack instructions. Drain, toss in the olive oil and set aside. 2 Simmer the onion, milk and haddock over a low heat for 10 mins, then remove the fish with a fish slice. Flake the flesh, drizzle with the truffle oil and set aside.

3 Mix the butter and flour together to make a paste. Whisk into the hot milk, then bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat, add half the cheese and stir. 4 Remove the pan from the heat, mix the pasta into the sauce, then fold in the haddock and season with black pepper.

The sauce may seem thin, but it’ll thicken as it cooks. Butter a large baking dish and tip in the macaroni (I like it piled high), then scatter over the rest of the cheese and most of the breadcrumbs. Will keep, covered, in the fridge for up to two days.

5 Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Bake for 20 mins until bubbling, then sprinkle over the rest of the breadcrumbs. Bake for 5 mins more, then drizzle a little more truffle oil on top and scatter with some extra herbs, if you like.

PER SERVING 701 kcals, fat 31g, saturates 17g,

carbs 63g, sugars 9g, fibre 4g, protein 39g, salt 2g