Take off the heat and very gradually whisk in the tomatoey milk, until it’s completely smooth. It soon looks like tangerine-tinted foaming honeycomb. Whisk over the heat until it all coheres into an orange, fragrant, loose paste this will take no longer than a minute. Turn the heat up to medium and add the flour and spices.

Over lowish heat, melt the butter, then peel and mince or grate in the garlic and stir it around in the pan quickly. Find a smallish heavy-based saucepan I use one of 18cm / 7 inches diameter.Put a pan of water on to boil for the pasta. Pour the milk into a measuring jug and stir in the tablespoon of tomato purée. Mix the flour with the spices in a small cup. Grate the Gruyère into a bowl and add the 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan.It would be remiss of me not to let you know that if you bump up the milk in the sauce recipe to 300ml / 1¼ cups, it makes for sensational seafood nachos: warm tortilla chips in the oven, then pour the sauce over them, and top with sliced red chillies and chopped chives or whatever you please.įor US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list. I find a freckling of Aleppo pepper (though you could use paprika) more than makes up for the familiar heat-scorched finish. I stray further from tradition in that I use pasta shells rather than macaroni, and I don’t scatter more cheese on top and brown it in the oven, and indeed advise sternly against it.

The combination is just sumptuous, like a cross between a mac’n’cheese and a bisque. Smoked paprika and crab (a 50/50 mixture of both white and brown meat) give an almost honeyed depth to the velvety cheese sauce, which is made with nutty and sweet gruyere.

This is the most luscious of treats: rich, to be sure, but somehow delicate at the same time.

Crab and shrimp mac and cheese recipe