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Macaroni Dressed in the English Fashion
Ribbon or pipe macaroni may be used, and either boiled in milk, broth, or water. To four ounces of macaroni so boiled, add three ounces of grated cheese and a little salt; half the quantity of cheese is often mixed with the macaroni, and the remainder is put over the top, with grated bread-crumbs and a little clarified butter. Brown in an oven, or with a salamander. Dr. Kitchener remarks on this mode of dressing, "that the butter and cheese generally get burned, and in this state macaroni is unwholesome."
A bare-bones macaroni cheese from the days before the white sauce became standard. The proportions are generous with cheese and the method depends entirely on how you brown the top.
- Scale and yieldFour ounces of dry macaroni with three ounces of cheese serves two as a side dish, one as a supper. Doubling works without adjustment.
- "Ribbon or pipe macaroni"Ribbon means a flat noodle, closer to fettuccine; pipe is the hollow tube we now call macaroni. Either is fine, but tubes hold the cheese better under a browned crust.
- Boiling in milkMilk gives the richest result and thickens with the starch into something like a sauce, but it scorches easily and needs a low flame and stirring. Broth is the middle course; water gives the driest dish and makes the cheese quantity do all the work.
- The cheeseAn English cook of this period would most likely have reached for a firm cheese such as Cheshire or Cheddar, though Parmesan is also frequently specified for macaroni in books of the era. Skip anything pre-shredded, which is dusted with starch and melts poorly.
- Clarified butterButter with the milk solids removed, so it browns without the flecks that burn. Ghee is the same thing and sold ready-made; ordinary melted butter will work but scorches sooner, which is precisely Dr. Kitchener's complaint.
- BrowningA salamander was an iron plate heated in the fire and held over the dish. Use the broiler, 3-4 inches from the element, for 2-3 minutes with the door ajar and your eyes on it. Do not walk away; the crumb topping goes from gold to black in under a minute.
- If you bake instead400F for 15-20 minutes browns the top without drying the interior. Longer and hotter is how the butter and cheese get burned, exactly as Kitchener warned.
- Seasoning"A little salt" is all the original allows, and salted pasta water plus aged cheese may be enough. Black pepper, mustard powder or a grating of nutmeg are all period-appropriate additions if the dish tastes flat.
Macaroni reached English tables from Italy as a luxury import and was long treated as a genteel novelty, the word itself lending its name to the over-dressed young men of the 1770s who had made the Grand Tour. By the time Cassell's was compiled, the dish had become domestic enough to need a national label: "dressed in the English fashion" means simply boiled, layered with cheese and crumbs, and browned, as against what was often taken to be the Italian habit of serving the pasta plain with cheese handed round. The Dr. Kitchener quoted is William Kitchiner, whose Apicius Redivivus, or The Cook's Oracle (1817) was one of the most widely reprinted English cookery books of the century; his objection to burnt butter and cheese as "unwholesome" may perhaps be read as echoing a Georgian wariness about scorched fats, and Cassell's evidently thought the warning still worth passing on decades later.