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Neapolitan Macaroni
1/2 pound Zita macaroni, large pipes 4 ounces flour 1 teacup of milk 1 pound tomatoes 1 ounce butter 1 Parmesan cheese 1 pint of salad oil Pepper and salt to taste Break the macaroni into one-inch lengths, and throw it into plenty of boiling water. Scald the onion, and stick a few cloves into it, add to the macaroni, and boil quickly until the macaroni is cooked but not broken. Pour off the water, and drain well. Have ready a batter made of milk and flour, made by putting the flour into a basin and adding the milk slowly, stirring all the time, till half of it is used; then beat the batter well till bubbles form on top. Add the rest of the milk, and let it stand till the macaroni is cooked; this makes the batter lighter. Cut the tomatoes in halves, and put them on a buttered baking tin in a moderate oven, with the rest of the ounce of butter in small bits on the top of them. Bake till just tender, but not broken. Make the salad oil very hot in the saucepan. When the macaroni is drained from the water, throw four or five bits of it into the hot oil. If it browns quickly, put in the other bits, and fry a light brown. Lift out of the oil, drain on white paper, reheat the oil, and continue to dip in batter, and fry in oil all the rest of the macaroni. Put the tomatoes in a ring, round a deep fire-proof dish. Heap the fried macaroni in the center. Put a border of the grated cheese round the outside edge of the ring of tomatoes. Make very hot in the oven. Serve at once in the dish in which it was baked.
A fritto of batter-dipped macaroni, and the recipe's ingredient list and method do not entirely agree. Read both before starting.
- The hinge: dry macaroni, hot oilBoiled macaroni carries water, and water in a batter fryer means spitting and a soggy coat. Drain it, spread it on a towel until the surface is genuinely dry, and keep the oil at 350-365F, frying in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- Missing and ambiguous quantitiesThe onion appears in the method but not in the list; a medium onion scalded and stuck with cloves (the recipe says only 'a few') is the likely intention. "1 Parmesan cheese" is a typesetting casualty; 2 to 3 ounces, grated, is a reasonable reading. The recipe never says what becomes of the clove-stuck onion, but it is presumably lifted out or discarded when the water is poured off.
- A teacup of milkA Victorian teacupful is not a fixed measure; period British books generally reckon it at about a quarter of a pint, say 5 to 6 fluid ounces. With 4 ounces of flour that gives a thick coating batter; loosen with a spoonful more milk if it will not cling in a thin film.
- Moderate oven350F for the tomatoes. Halved and dotted with butter they need 20 to 30 minutes to soften without collapsing.
- Salad oilIn this period the term usually meant olive oil, sometimes cottonseed or a blended "salad oil." A pint is the frying quantity, not an ingredient in the dish; any neutral oil with a high smoke point works, and you can use a smaller pan with less oil if you fry in more batches.
- Zita and "large pipes"Zita (now ziti) is the wide tube; "large pipes" is the same idea. Broken into one-inch lengths and boiled to just tender -- err on the firm side, since the pieces get a second cooking in oil and a third in the oven.
- The batter's restHalf the milk beaten in first, then the rest, then a stand (the recipe times it by the boiling of the macaroni), is not fussiness -- resting hydrates the flour and lets the gluten relax, which may be what lies behind the author's claim that it makes the batter 'lighter.'
- Assembly and yieldThe cheese border goes on outside the tomato ring rather than over it. The recipe says only to make it very hot in the oven; a few minutes should do, and longer will soften the fried coating. Half a pound of macaroni will stretch to about three or four portions depending on how it is served.