For a large portion (can serve 10 people, using large baking dish):
600g macaroni – cook al dente minus 1min, butter and set aside
Grate cheese and reserve 2 cups:
400g white cheddar strong
200g gruyère
Make a roux (melt butter, whisk in flour, whisk for 3min). Add liquid while whisking, bring to a boil while whisking, let boil for ~2min (until it starts to thicken, happens quite fast). Remove/reduce heat, stir cheese in gradually until melted
110g butter
55g flour (0.4 cups)
1 litre of milk
330ml of cream (1 1/3 cup)
Salt, pepper (while it comes up to a boil)
Cheese from above minus 2 cups
Mix the sauce into the macaroni. Lay half the macaroni in the baking dish, sprinkle half of the cheese, then the other half of the macaroni and the remaining cheese on top.
Prepare bread crumb topping by pouring butter into bread crumbs with some paprika:
1 1/3 cup bread crumbs
75g butter
paprika
Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top, bake at 175C (convection) until brown, 30-45 minutes. Can freeze or refrigerate before going into the oven.
37.5g Kosher salt (2.5% of the weight, be precise, 3% is a bit salty)
75g sugar (optional, this makes it quite sweet). Maybe about 10g to help with the color without making it sweet.
Pepper, Bay leaves, flavours
Make a dry rub with above and rub it in really well, not wasting salt. The exact quantities matter and are based on weight of meat.
Put meat in a sealed ziploc bag and refrigerate 10-14 days, turning once a day and rubbing it in. A liquid forms in the bag (the brine…). The brine works better if it’s vacuum sealed.
Take the bacon out, wipe and pat dry, no need to rinse. Better to also leave one night in the refrigerator to dry out the outside, on a rack. Could just prepare and cook it now without smoking, but there’s still a lot of water so it takes forever to cook. You can also dry it in the fridge or a better controlled temperature and humidity at this point (to lose 30-40% of weight).
Smoke – took about 7h to bring the temperature in the middle to 153F (aim for 150F-155F, 65C) smoking at 175F to 180F. Don’t exceed ~200F/95C for too long so that the fat doesn’t render. Hot smoking should be above 150F/65C, cold smoking needs to be below 80F/25C and should be a light smoke.
You don´t need nitrites but use good hygiene, good quality meat and good temperature control, it’s particularly important not to put the meat in contact with things that have touched vegetables, etc, since those have more of the botulism spores on their surface, although you should assume there are spores on the surface of the meat. You need to avoid putting the spores in the environment where bacteria will grow and produce the neurotoxin. The food can´t be warm (out of the fridge or cold smoking) and in a low oxygen environment at the same time. Curing in the fridge is low oxygen (sealed vacuum bag), but cold so ok. Hot smoking is fine, as long as above 140F/60C, even if low oxygen, the spores on the surface won´t grow. Cold smoking, you have to be careful to have a light smoke, so that there’s still enough oxygen circulating on the outside of the meat. You can also just dry hang it.
The nitrites really only make the color pink and you’re much more likely to get colon cancer from the nitrites than botulism from not using them. Parma ham is nitrite free and mass produced, nobody has died from botulism from Parma ham… Nitrites are only really used in mass production so that industrialists can use crappy meat and speed up the curing time (and time is money, hence the lobby to make people think you need nitrites and not to worry about the third most common type of cancer!). If you make salami, it’s a different story, then you can still avoid using nitrites but you have to pay attention to acidity (pH level), since salami will be warm and low oxygen… For entire pieces of meat (a whole muscle), then it’s quite safe without nitrites if you are careful with hygiene (good quality meat, clean tools, not warm and low oxygen at the same time).
800g environ de grosses pommes de terre (4-5), pour 4 personnes en accompagnement. Au Canada – prendre des Russet (mieux) ou des White Potatoes. Suivant le type de pommes de terre qu’on choisit, ca change pas mal le rösti final, de la purée à la soupe immonde.
peler les pommes de terre (quand l’eau bouille – au dernier moment pour ne pas qu’elles deviennent toutes noires)
250g environ de lardons, commencer à saisir en même temps que les pommes de terre vont dans l’eau bouillante
mettre les pommes de terre 12 min dans l’eau bouillante, les retirer et laisser refroidir (les lardons continuent à cuire)
une fois que les lardons sont à peu près prêts, commencer à râper les pommes de terre. Normalement, il n’y a plus d’eau dans les PDT, sinon il faut les essorer.
faire sauter les röstis pendant 2-3 minutes en remuant pour bien les recouvrir de gras (ils ne devraient pas trop coller ensemble), ou carrément verser le gras dans les rösti avant la poêle. A feu moyen. Ne pas utiliser du beurre – soit le gras des lardons, soit de l´huile!
former une galette et laisser dorer les rösti à feu moyen (plutôt bas que haut) pendant 12-15min, en remuant de temps en temps pour que ca ne colle pas
retourner la galette avec une assiette
pour sortir du canton de Berne, rajouter du Gruyère par dessus (ou alors le Raclette et au four pour que ce soit valaisan)
dorer l’autre côté, 8-10min.
On peut aussi faire avec des PDT déjà cuites (p.ex. en robe de champs la veille), avec un mélange PDT cuites et crues, ou juste avec des crues. Avec des crues (en mélange ou toutes seules), il faut les peler, les grattiner et absolument les mettre dans l’eau une dizaine de minute (en remplaçant plusieurs fois l’eau) pour enlever l’amidon, sinon c’est immangeable, et ensuite bien les essorer.
