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MACARONI, BOILED (a I'Italienne)
Put five or six ounces of the best Italian macaroni into plenty of boiling water, not less than three pints, a salt-spoonful of salt, and one of fine pepper; simmer for twenty minutes, and drain. After this first boiling, which should be observed in the preparation of all dishes, return the macaroni to the stewpan, with half a pint of gravy or broth, according to the richness required, and simmer until the macaroni has imbibed all the liquid. Have ready grated a quarter of a pound of Parmesan and Gruyere cheese, mixed. Put half the quantity with the macaroni until nearly melted, then add the rest, and an ounce of butter. Move the contents of the pan round in one direction until the cheese has been well incorporated and dissolved in the macaroni. Turn it out on a hot dish, and serve. In this way macaroni is eaten at most of the best tables in Leghorn and Florence. Time, three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 3d. or 4d. per pound. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A dish of two stages: the pasta is boiled, then finished in broth until it has drunk the liquid and the cheese is stirred in. The second stage is the point of the recipe, and the first needs shortening.
- Cut the first boiling shortTwenty minutes will reduce modern dried pasta to paste. Boil it several minutes short of the packet time — around 6 to 8 minutes for most shapes — because it finishes cooking in the broth afterwards.
- What "Italian macaroni" means hereLong, hollow tubes roughly the thickness of a pencil, snapped into lengths, not the small elbows sold as macaroni today. Bucatini or ziti behave the same way and hold the cheese sauce better than elbows.
- MeasuresHalf a pint here is an imperial half-pint, about 285 ml of broth; three pints of cooking water is about 1.7 litres. A saltspoonful is roughly a quarter teaspoon, so the pepper in the water is a light seasoning, not a bite.
- "Gravy or broth"In this period gravy means meat stock or the strained juices from a roast, not a thickened flour sauce. Any good unsalted chicken or beef stock works; salted stock will collide with the Parmesan.
- Cheese in two additionsAdding the 4 oz of grated Parmesan and Gruyère in halves, off a hard boil, keeps it from seizing into strings. Take the pan off high heat before the second addition and the butter.
- Stirring in one directionTraditional advice; what actually matters is steady, gentle, continuous movement, working the fat and cheese into the starchy broth. Keep it going until it turns glossy.
- YieldFive or six ounces of dry pasta for six or seven people is a small first course or side by modern habit. For a main dish, reckon on 3 to 4 oz of dry pasta per person and scale the broth, cheese and butter with it.
- Total timeThe stated three-quarters of an hour presumably covers the long first boil, the broth reduction and the finishing. With a shorter first boil, expect roughly 20 to 25 minutes start to finish.
Cassell's presents this as pasta cooked the Italian way rather than the English way — a distinction worth making in a period when British cookery routinely baked macaroni in milk sauce until it was soft throughout. The recipe refers to "the best tables in Leghorn and Florence" (Leghorn being the old English name for Livorno). The technique described here — undercook, then let the pasta absorb a flavoured liquid and be bound with grated cheese and butter — is the ancestor of what is now called finishing pasta in the pan, and the pairing of Parmesan with Gruyère was common in nineteenth-century kitchens. The quoted cost of threepence or fourpence a pound marks macaroni as an economical import.