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Macaroni Cheese Straws
4 ounces macaroni Seasoning 2 ounces grated cheese Cook the macaroni for a quarter of an hour in boiling water. Strain, and let it get cool. Cut up into even lengths of four inches, twist them or tie them together, and dip into the grated cheese and bread crumbs; or, mix the cheese, bread crumbs and seasoning together, and dip into this. Fry a light brown in boiling oil, drain well, and sprinkle with a little grated cheese. Lettuce or water cress is nice with this dish.
A cheap imitation of the pastry cheese straw, built from long macaroni instead of dough. It works, but the original leaves out the one thing that makes the coating stay put.
- The hinge: nothing here is stickyCooled, drained macaroni is slick, and dry crumbs will not cling to it. Dip the twists in beaten egg (or thin cream) before rolling them in the cheese-and-crumb mixture, or most of the coating will end up in the frying oil.
- Buy the right macaroniThis needs long, straight macaroni tubes that can be cut to four inches and knotted. Modern elbow macaroni cannot be twisted or tied; look for bucatini, perciatelli or long-cut macaroni.
- Cooking timeA quarter of an hour was right for the coarse dried macaroni of the period. Today's product is done in 8 to 10 minutes, and for frying you want it a shade firm — fully soft macaroni tears when you tie it.
- Tie while pliableCooked macaroni stiffens as it cools, so knotting or twisting is easier while the lengths are still warm and limp; spread them on a towel to cool and dry afterwards. Surface water makes the oil spit. (The recipe itself has you cool the macaroni first.)
- Unstated quantitiesThe recipe never says how many bread crumbs. Start with about equal volume to the 2 oz of grated cheese — roughly half a cup of dry crumbs — and add more if the mixture looks greasy.
- "Seasoning"Here that means at least salt and black or white pepper; cheese dishes of the period often also took a little cayenne or dry mustard, which lifts a plain cheese coating. Season the crumb mixture, not the macaroni water alone.
- "Boiling oil"Deep fat at 350–375F, deep enough to float the twists. They colour in a minute or two; take them out at light brown, as the cheese in the coating darkens fast.
- Yield and servingFour ounces of dry macaroni makes a plateful for four as a savoury or appetiser, not a main course. Serve hot with the lettuce or watercress suggested, which cuts the fried cheese.
Cheese straws proper are strips of cheese pastry, baked and served at the end of a British dinner as a savoury, and they were a fixture of late-Victorian and Edwardian tables. This version borrows the name and the idea while dispensing with butter and flour. Macaroni was often treated in English cookery as an economical dish boiled soft and dressed with cheese rather than as an Italian dish in its own right; frying it in a crumb coat is the same instinct applied to the savoury course. The watercress or lettuce alongside is a common period accompaniment to anything fried and rich.