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Nouilles and Cheese
8 ounces of nouilles 3 pints of boiling water 2 ounces of butter 2 ounces grated Gruyere or Parmesan cheese 3 good sized tomatoes Pepper and salt to taste Let the water be boiling in an aluminum saucepan, and throw in the nouilles gently, let it boil slowly for about ten minutes, and allow it to stand for a few minutes. Have ready another enamel or aluminum saucepan about the same size, into which put the butter and tomatoes, which must be skinned and cut up, and let them cook while the nouilles are straining, about fifteen minutes. Now add the nouilles and seasoning to the tomatoes and butter, also the cheese. Mix all together.
A plain noodle-and-tomato supper dish from the meat-substitute chapter, and it works as written provided you season the pasta water, which the original does not.
- NouillesSimply the French for noodles — flat egg noodles of the tagliatelle sort. Eight ounces of dried ribbon pasta is the modern equivalent.
- Salt the waterThe recipe puts pepper and salt in only at the end. Three pints of water wants about two teaspoons of salt so the noodles season from the inside; otherwise the dish tastes flat however much you add later.
- Cooking timeTen minutes at a slow boil suits thick period noodles. Modern dried pasta is thinner and faster — go by the packet, usually 7–9 minutes, and taste. The instruction to "allow it to stand" is unnecessary and will only let the strands stick; drain and use at once.
- Skinning the tomatoesScore a cross in the base, cover with boiling water for 30 seconds, then slip the skins off. Three good-sized tomatoes is roughly 1 lb / 450 g.
- The tomato butterFifteen minutes over moderate heat is what turns cut tomatoes into a sauce rather than wet chunks. Keep the pan uncovered so the liquid reduces, and crush the pieces against the side as they soften.
- The cheeseTwo ounces is roughly half to two-thirds of a cup grated, depending on the cheese and the grater. Add it off the heat and toss quickly - Gruyere in particular will string and separate if it sits over a burner.
- PansThe recipe specifies aluminium and enamel, pans that would not react with acidic food. Any modern non-reactive pan is fine; stainless steel is preferable to bare aluminium with tomatoes.
- YieldServes two generously as a main dish, or four as a side. It does not reheat well; the cheese tightens.
Some cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used the French nouilles rather than the plain English "noodles," at a time when pasta still read as a foreign ingredient in Anglo-American kitchens. Vegetarian cookery of the period leaned heavily on cheese, eggs, pulses and starches to supply what was thought of as the nourishing part of a meal. The specification of Gruyere or Parmesan, and of a tomato base cooked down in butter, points to the Continental cooking that meatless writers of the day drew on - Italy and Switzerland offered a repertoire of respectable dishes that happened to contain no meat at all.