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Baked Macaroni
Take about three ounces macaroni and boil till tender in a stew pan with a little water; take a pudding dish or pan, warm a little butter in it, and put in a layer of macaroni, then a layer of cheese grated or cut in small bits, and sprinkle over with salt, pepper and small pieces of butter, then add another layer of macaroni, and so on, finishing off with cheese; pour on rich milk or cream enough to just come to the top of the ingredients, and bake from one-half to three quarters of an hour. Rice may be used instead of macaroni by first cooking as follows: Pick and wash a cup of rice, put in a stew-kettle with three cups boiling water, and set over the fire-the boiling water makes the kernels retain their shape better than when cold water is used. When done put a layer of rice, cheese, etc., alternately as you would macaroni, and bake in the same way.
A layered baked macaroni and cheese with no sauce, no crumbs and no flour — the milk and the melting cheese make their own binding in the oven. A few of the original's silences need filling in.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives none, since it was written for range ovens judged by hand. Treat it as a moderate oven, 350F, for the half to three-quarters of an hour specified.
- Quantity and yieldThree ounces of dry macaroni is roughly three-quarters of a cup, which yields two modest servings. For a family dish, multiply by four and use a 9x13 pan; the layering is unchanged, though a deeper dish will likely need longer than the three-quarters of an hour specified.
- Boil the pasta short"Boil till tender" assumes the pasta finishes in the water. Modern dried pasta should come out of the water two or three minutes shy of al dente, since it keeps cooking in the milk.
- "Rich milk or cream"Whole milk or half-and-half. The dairy should just reach the top of the macaroni, not cover it — too much and the dish stays soupy, since there is no flour or egg to set it.
- The cheeseThe recipe says only "cheese," which in an 1870s Midwestern kitchen would most likely have meant a plain American cheddar-type. Grate rather than cube for even melting, and grate it yourself: pre-shredded cheese is coated with starch or cellulose that leaves a grainy film.
- SaltSalt the pasta water, which the original does not mention, and go lightly with the salt between layers — the cheese carries most of it.
- The rice variantOne cup rice to three cups boiling water is more water than long-grain white rice will absorb, so treat it as a boil-and-drain: cook about 18 minutes and drain off any excess before layering. The original's claim that boiling water helps the kernels keep their shape is commonly repeated, though the reason given for it is not well established.
- BrowningFinishing with cheese on top is the point of the layering. If it has not colored by the end of the bake, a few minutes under the broiler will give a browned top.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping came out of Ohio in the late 1870s, and is generally described as having grown out of recipes contributed by local churchwomen; macaroni sits among the vegetable recipes, comfortably within a Midwestern household repertoire. Macaroni had been an imported delicacy in America earlier in the century — the association with Thomas Jefferson, who owned a pasta machine and served macaroni at the President's House, is often repeated — but by the 1870s domestic manufacturers were producing it and it had come down in price and in status. What is notable here is the method: no roux, no bechamel, no mustard or cayenne, just pasta, cheese, butter and milk layered like a gratin and left to fuse in the oven. That layering technique is older than the flour-thickened sauce familiar from later American recipes, and the offhand suggestion to substitute rice suggests the dish was treated as flexible rather than fixed.