Oma's Maccaroni auflauf (german Mac & Cheese)

serves 6. Boil Macaroni until still chewy, may even seem a bit raw, still (they will get cooked in the oven). Put in sieve and rinse with cold water until lukewarm. Drain, and set aside. Mix milk and the seven eggs until one liquid (don't beat). Add the squashed (squashed?) garlic clove, stir again. Add the paprika (amount according to hotness. Don't use much if hot; it's meant for the coloring, really, not the spiciness). Add the salt Take a glass casserole (or any casserole, just, glass casseroles make it look good and you can control the browning. All this aside: Preheat oven to approx. 1900 Centigrade. Make an oilfilm on inside of casserole. Put a layer of macaroni in casserole, put a layer of ham (smoked and cooked) on top of that, then a layer of cheese. Repeat until you have about 3-4 layers of macaroni., ham & cheese. The top layer should be mostly macaroni. Now, carefully pour the milk/egg-liquid into the casserole. Take your time, it's like filling up a car tank: bubbles will come out of the empty spaces (Hohlraeume) of the macaroni, and the level of filling will reduce a bit with time, so stop pouring now and then. Put the rest of the cheese (I hope you _do_ have some left, else you should run and get more cheese) on the top layer, covering it closely. The liquid should now come to the top of the top layer of macaroni, the top layer of cheese should not or barely be immersed in liquid. This is where I have my biggest problems: I usually have a bit of liquid left (which makes me make a quick Pfannekuchen [German pancake], just add a bit of flour and cook in pan); if I have no liquid left, I make some more with the milk I usually don't have in reserve and the missing eighth egg, of course ;) You should now proceed to place the casserole into the preheated oven. It will take about 1.5 to 2 hours until the milk/egg mixture has become set The cheese should have a nice, mostly darkbrown state of carbonization. If you use a glass casserole, you can see if the degree of browning on top is correlating evenly to the browning of the stuff (I mean the food connected to the sides of the casserole). If you are using a non-translucent casserole, well, you'll find out if it was too short when you want to eat. The milk/egg mix is then still too liquid. In that case, back to the oven for another 15 min at 150 Centigrade. If the browning relation changes in favor of the top (top brown, sides pale) you can put an aluminum foil on top of the whole casserole to slow browning on top. This, of course, only if you have a glass casserole so you can see the relation; or, if you want to eat and find out it is not ready yet, to prevent the top layer from carbonizing further.