Clog Your Arteries with Pesto Shrimp, Five Cheese, Pork Belly Mac & Cheese

So while wandering around Nye Beach on the Oregon coast last month, specifically during lunch and dinner hours, my eyes kept lingering over mac & cheese restaurant menu items. To me, it’s truly one of the best comfort foods served in America...and many places in the rest of the world. I decided that for the upcoming SciFi movie night with “the boys”, I’d make a WFO variation of a Basil-Shrimp mac & cheese that Susan had made several years ago. My variation included different (and more) cheeses, smoked pork belly chunks, and a finishing layer of panko & butter to form a crunchy top. Since smoked pork belly chunks (lardons) are not standard items available in grocery stores, thick cut bacon will work...but real pork belly, smoked and crisped up at home is a whole new level of yum!

I had previously purchased a 10 pound side of pork belly, sealed up 2 pound portions in vacuum packs and cooked them in my Sous Vide. Lots of information on the Internet regarding times and temperatures for pork belly. I chose to use a 24 hr at 165°F (74°C) cook for my “pork packs”.  I opened one of these pre-cooked packs for use in this batch of Mac & Cheese, sliced it and then smoked the slices a bit in my oven prior to cutting & lardon crisping.

Here’s the modified recipe I used for this batch of cheesy, shrimpy, pesto-y, pork belly heaven.

Mac & Cheese Core
1 lb shrimp, peeled with tails remaining (on 4-6)
8 oz dried Penne pasta
1/4 cup of melted butter
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1 cup cream (half & half works great)
8 oz of grated cheese (2 oz each of Gouda, Fontina, Provalone, & Pecorino)
2 cloves minced garlic
2 TBS pine nuts (optional...but really good!)
2 TBS good quality basil based pesto
Pepper to taste (cheeses & pesto will provide significant salt)

Topping
2-3 oz of smoked pork belly, chunked into lardons (again, a good thick bacon will work well)
2-4 thin slices of Provalone
4-6 reserved shrimp (see below)
3/4 cup Panko
½ cup grated Parmesano Regiano
½ stick of butter sliced (used to dot final topping)
Optional, some fresh basil leaves, Chiffonade or Julienne cut.





The wood fired oven temp was too low from yesterday’s bread bake (still about 250°F) so I used my charcoal chimney to light up some lump charcoal. My target temperature was between 350-375°F.

As the oven approached my target temp, I put in a little Tuscan grill over the coals and nestled in a small iron frying pan loaded up with hardwood pellets (Cherry, Beech, and Sweet Pecan mix).

While the pork belly got a little smoke added in the WFO and the oven got some extra BTUs pumped in, I started prepping the rest of my over the top creation.

First I made sure I had all my ingredients assembled (mis en place) or at least visible.

Prep & Assembly:

Clean shrimp (reserve 4-6 with tails for topping presentation). Pat all shrimp dry and chop into bite sized pieces. Set aside.

Butter a 2 quart baking dish and have a large bowl available for mixing the upcoming items.

Heat a medium sized skillet.

Get your well salted pasta water boiling.  Add the Penne pasta.

While the pasta is cooking, briefly toast the pine nuts in the heated skillet and set them aside. (Watch ‘em carefully, they are expensive and burn easily! 😢)

It's been about 45 minutes of heating & smoking in the oven so, Retrieve your smoked pork belly.
(I love the sound of that phrase...it should be on a billboard or the motto for a BBQ joint.)

Move the coals & Tuscan grill to the side of the oven, making room for the casserole dish.

Cut pork belly into bite sized chunks (lardons). Crisp lardons to caramelize outside faces then reduce heat. If your bacon or lardons are very fatty, remove all but a tablespoon or so of the hot fat before adding the shrimp and garlic. Briefly heat all shrimp and minced garlic in remaining hot pork/bacon fat. Set aside the full shrimp pieces (with tail) and lardons. Remove skillet from heat so chopped shrimp and garlic stop cooking.

Check the pasta, your goal is firm al dente, reserve a cup of cooking water and drain pasta. Transfer the drained pasta into your large mixing bowl.

To the pasta, lightly mix together the chopped shrimp pieces, garlic, and flavored pork fat. Next, add the toasted pine nuts, butter, eggs, cream, grated cheese, pepper, and pesto. Toss to mix evenly.



If the pasta mix seems dry, adds some of the reserved pasta water. The mixture should be a little soupy as it will firm up substantially during the bake. Transfer ingredients into the buttered baking dish.

(I advocate using a mixing bowl instead of trying to combine the ingredients in the final baking dish as I was trying to do for the photo...)

Mix panko and grated Parmesano Regiano together.

Place crisped lardons or bacon over the top of the pasta mix.









Lay Provalone slices over the crispy pork yums and then set the reserved shrimp (with tails) on top.

Lift each shrimp tail up slightly and sprinkle Parmesan/panko crumb mix around it, so the tail remains slightly up and exposed. Do the same with the other "tailed" shrimp. Your goal is to use all the crumb/cheese mix and have the shrimp tails lifted slightly up from the topping.



Dot with butter.

Bake, uncovered, until heated through and topping has browned in places. This should take between 40-45 minutes depending on your oven and temperature. Remove from oven and let rest for 10-15 minutes.


Before serving, sprinkle top with fresh basil if you wish (chiffonade cut works best IMHO--note that I was too lazy to add it when I made this).

I like to serve hot pasta dishes on top of a bed of fresh, baby spinach...helps me to view (rationalize...irrationalize?) this caloric overload of tasty, decadent heaven as somewhat healthy.



Serves between 4-6 (depending on how hungry they are...or how much you’re willing to share).

I was told that in many cultures (not America) that you should leave a little food on the plate to indicate you are full and that the chef has done a fabulous job of not only preparing the food but portioning it properly for the meal and the guest.
So here's my token effort at self-congratulation.

By the way, the SciFi movie we watched was Rampage and nobody left hungry (as far as I know) or needing more entertainment.