Tueday: Fennel-Scented Macaroni and Cheese

Aside: I'm just going to quietly ignore the multi-month silence and try to get back into keeping this up-to-date again.

Over the weekend I adapted a recipe from food52 where fennel is braised in light cream and then tossed in the oven to take on some color (nice stuff, by the way). This left me with a couple cups of light cream with distinct, but not overwhelming, fennel taste, an ingredient that had to be used for something. What I came up is a macaroni-and-cheese variation:

Make a bechamel with 2Tbs butter, 3Tbs flour, and 2 cups of the light cream. Season with salt, white pepper, nutmeg, and a bit of cayenne. Stir in a mixture of grated gruyere and vacherin fribourgeois. Cook some pasta (I used shells) that is still a minute of cooking away from being al dente and put it in a baking dish. Pour over the cheese sauce and then toss the whole thing under the broiler for 5 minutes or so, until the top has taken on some color.

This is extremely rich, but really, really good.