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Spaghetti, with Eggs
Boil the spaghetti as in the preceding recipe, and allow six hard-boiled eggs to half a pound. Turn the spaghetti into a dish, and pour over it half a pint of sauce, which may be plain white, celery, caper, or tomato sauce. Slice the eggs and put them over the sauce. This is a substantial and nourishing dish, as well as economical. Cost, about 1s.
A plain assembly dish: boiled spaghetti, a poured sauce, sliced hard-boiled eggs on top. Nothing here is difficult, but two Victorian habits — long-boiled pasta and a very generous egg ratio — are worth adjusting before you serve it.
- The preceding recipeCassell's boiling instruction is not reproduced here, but Victorian pasta was generally boiled well past al dente, which was normal when it was sold as a long-keeping dry good and eaten soft. Cook to the package time for al dente, 8-10 minutes, and drain without rinsing.
- Half a pint of sauceAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. That is enough to coat half a pound of spaghetti but not to flood it; make a little extra if you like the dish wetter.
- Six eggs to half a poundThat is a high ratio by modern taste — roughly a whole egg and a half per serving on top of the pasta. Four eggs to 225 g spaghetti gives a better balance, and the dish still reads as substantial.
- Caper and celery sauceBoth are period white sauces: a butter-and-flour béchamel finished with drained capers and a little of their vinegar, or with celery stewed soft in milk and sieved. Either can be replaced with any decent white or tomato sauce.
- Assemble hot, and quicklyThe eggs are laid over the sauce, not simmered in it, so they cool the dish fast. Have the eggs peeled and the sauce hot before the pasta drains, and warm the serving dish.
- Hard-boiled eggsThe recipe gives no time. Eight to nine minutes at a bare simmer gives a set but not chalky yolk; the grey-green ring and sulphurous smell come from longer cooking. Cool in cold water before slicing.
- Yield and finishingHalf a pound of spaghetti with the sauce feeds three as a main course or four as a light supper. A little grated hard cheese, chopped parsley and black pepper over the top costs nothing and helps.
- Cost, about 1sOne shilling was a real figure for a Victorian household, and the recipe's own boast is that the dish is "economical." The figure carries no useful information now.
Spaghetti entered English cookery books in the second half of the nineteenth century as an inexpensive, shelf-stable import, usually filed alongside macaroni — which had appeared in English books well before then — and treated much the same way: boiled long, sauced, and often baked with cheese. The wording of Cassell's gives away the spirit of the thing — "substantial and nourishing... as well as economical" is the language of household economy, not of regional cooking. Pairing starch with eggs to make a meatless main was a standard middle-class strategy for cheap dinners, and the offered sauces (white, celery, caper, tomato) owe nothing to anything Italian. The result is a British dish using an Italian ingredient.