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Macaroni Souffle
Season a cupful of rich cream sauce with 1 teaspoonful of finely minced parsley, a dash of cayenne or paprika, and a few drops of onion juice, taking care not to use too much of the latter. Add 1 cupful of chopped boiled macaroni, heat to boiling point, and stir in the beaten yolks of 2 eggs. When the eggs have thickened, put the mixture away to cool. Beat the whites of the eggs very stiff and fold them into the cold macaroni, first beating it up lightly with a fork. Pour quickly into the buttered souffle dish, sprinkle lightly with fine bread crumbs, and bake in a hot oven fifteen or twenty minutes. Serve with mushroom or tomato sauce. Like all souffles it must be served the moment it is done.
A small, straightforward soufflé built on a thick cream sauce rather than a flour-heavy panade. The one thing to get right is temperature: the yolk-thickened macaroni base must be genuinely cold before the whites go in, or they deflate on contact.
- "Rich cream sauce"A thick white sauce made with cream, or with milk enriched by cream, on the order of 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour to a cup of liquid. It should mound on the spoon; a thin sauce will not support the whites.
- Hot ovenRoughly 400 to 425F. At that heat 15 to 20 minutes is right for a souffle of this size; the centre should still be slightly creamy when it comes out.
- Onion juiceMade by grating a peeled onion on a fine grater and using the liquid that collects. The caution in the original is sound -- a quarter teaspoon is plenty for a cup of sauce. Grated shallot pressed in a sieve does the same job.
- Chopped macaroniMacaroni was commonly sold in long tubes, which is the likely reason for the instruction to chop. Modern elbows need no cutting, though halving them helps the mixture hold together. Boil until just tender, not soft, since it cooks again in the oven.
- FoldingLoosen the cold base with a fork first, as directed, then fold in a third of the whites to slacken it before the rest goes in. Work quickly and stop while streaks are still faintly visible.
- The dishA 1-quart straight-sided dish, buttered well and then given the breadcrumb coating -- the crumbs give the batter something to climb. No collar is needed for a soufflé this shallow.
- YieldTwo eggs and a cup of macaroni make a small soufflé: three or four servings as a side dish, two as a light supper with the tomato sauce.
- ServingThe closing line is the operative one. Have the sauce hot and the table ready before the dish leaves the oven; it begins to fall within a couple of minutes.
Macaroni was often placed among the vegetables or starchy accompaniments in American cookbooks of this period rather than treated as a dish in its own right. Treating it as a souffle reflects the spread of French technique into the ordinary American kitchen in the later nineteenth century, when compilations of this sort taught home cooks white sauces, ramekins and cheese-and-egg puddings. Onion juice, cayenne, and a few drops of something sharp recur constantly in the seasoning of the period -- flavour added without visible pieces, in keeping with a taste for smooth, pale, uniform food. The insistence on serving the instant it is done is common in souffle recipes of the era.