Baked Macaroni with Eggs

A short assembly recipe that assumes you already have three things on hand: boiled macaroni, hard-boiled eggs and a cream sauce. Everything hinges on the sauce being loose enough to move through the layers as it heats.

• What you need firstThe recipe presumes cooked macaroni, hard-boiled eggs and a white or cream sauce all made in advance; none of the quantities are given. For a small baking dish something in the region of 6 to 8 oz dry macaroni, 3 or 4 eggs and enough sauce to coat each layer generously will fill it.
• Sauce consistencyMake the sauce thinner than you would for a stovetop macaroni cheese. It thickens in the oven, and if it starts stiff the dish sets into a solid block rather than bubbling up through the crumbs.
• Cook the macaroni shortNineteenth- and early twentieth-century instructions often boiled macaroni far longer than we would now. Drain it a minute or two shy of al dente, since it will keep absorbing sauce in the oven.
• EggsSlice them no thinner than a quarter inch. Thin slices break up under the sauce and disappear into it, and hard-boiled yolks turn chalky with long baking, so keep the total oven time short.
• Zwieback crumbsZwieback is a twice-baked sweetened rusk, still sold in some groceries as a teething biscuit. Plain dried breadcrumbs or crushed melba toast give the same dry, browning crust; dot with butter so they colour.
• Oven and donenessThe recipe gives no temperature; a moderate oven, around 350F, suits it. 'Till it begins to boil up through' means the sauce is visibly bubbling at the edges and through gaps in the crumb topping. Do not wait for deep browning.
• YieldThe recipe gives no yield. A small baking dish of this kind would serve roughly four as a main course, more as a side.