Boil some macaroni in salted water until tender. Then fry 1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic chopped in olive-oil. Add 1 cup of tomato-sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Then add the macaroni, and let fry altogether. Serve hot with baked chicken.
June 16 — No. 16
Italian
A very short sauce recipe of the kind that assumes the cook already knows the shape of the dish. The gaps are all in quantity and timing rather than technique.
- QuantitiesNo amount of macaroni is given. One onion, two cloves of garlic and a cup of tomato sauce will dress about 8 oz (225 g) dry pasta generously, serving two to three as written, or four alongside the chicken.
- "Tomato-sauce" in 1900"Tomato-sauce" -- This most likely means a plain cooked tomato purée, not a seasoned jarred pasta sauce and not ketchup, which some older books also called tomato sauce. Canned crushed tomatoes or passata, cooked down a few minutes, is the closest match.
- Cook the pasta shortThe macaroni finishes in the pan with the sauce, so boil it a couple of minutes shy of tender. Boiling it fully soft first, as the wording implies, then frying it again gives a mushy result.
- Don't brown the garlicThe onion needs several minutes over medium heat; chopped garlic needs under a minute. Add the garlic after the onion has softened or it turns bitter before the tomato goes in.
- "Let fry altogether"This is the hinge of the dish: the drained macaroni goes into the hot sauce in the pan and is tossed over the heat for a minute or two so the sauce clings rather than sitting on top. A ladle of the pasta water helps it bind.
- Olive oil quantityNo amount is given; two to three tablespoons is a workable measure, since a thin film will not carry the onion or coat the pasta.
- ServingThe original pairs it with baked chicken, so the macaroni functions as an accompaniment rather than a course on its own. Grated hard cheese at the table is consistent with the style.
Messina is the port city on the northeastern tip of Sicily; the recipe as printed here is headed only "Italian", so the regional label comes from elsewhere on the page rather than from the text itself. A soffritto of onion and garlic in olive oil, tomato, and pasta finished in the pan is the everyday backbone of southern Italian cooking. What is telling is the last line: served hot with baked chicken. The dish has been slotted into the familiar meat-and-side structure of the domestic dinner table, so macaroni appears as an accompaniment rather than as the separate first course it would be in Italy — and, as here, with the quantities left for the cook to judge.