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Baked Noodles, Spinach and Cheese (Cups noodles cooked in salted)
2 cups noodles cooked in salted boiling water 1/2 lb. grated cheese 2 cups cooked spinach 1 cup milk 3 tablespoons shortening 1 tablespoon flour 1/4 teaspoon salt pepper paprika Place noodles in greased mold. Cover with half the grated cheese, then place spinach over it. Making sauce of the milk, flour and shortening, pour it over the spinach. Sprinkle with rest of grated cheese, bake in hot oven 450 degrees for 25 minutes.
A layered noodle-and-spinach gratin from the era when a "mold" meant any deep baking dish. Two details need attention before you start: the spinach must be squeezed dry, and the sauce as written is far heavier on fat than flour.
- The mold"Greased mold" here means a straight-sided baking dish or casserole, roughly 1 1/2 quarts. Nothing is turned out, so an ordinary 8-inch square dish works.
- Drain the spinach hardTwo cups of cooked spinach can carry half a cup of water, which will thin the sauce and leave a puddle under the noodles. Press it in a sieve or wring it in a towel before layering.
- The sauce ratioThree tablespoons shortening to one tablespoon flour will not thicken a cup of milk; it will separate into a greasy film. Use equal amounts of fat and flour, about 2 tablespoons each, to get a sauce that clings.
- ShorteningIn a book of this period this most likely means vegetable shortening or lard. Butter gives a better flavor in a cheese dish, though its water content means it is not quite an even swap by volume in a roux.
- Noodle quantityThe ingredient line reads "2 cups noodles cooked in salted boiling water," which most likely means 2 cups measured after cooking -- roughly 4 ounces dry egg noodles -- though the wording could also be read as 2 cups dry.
- Oven and time450F for 25 minutes will brown the top cheese well past pleasant and can scorch it before the interior is hot through. 400F for 25 to 30 minutes, uncovered, gives the same set with a golden rather than blackened surface.
- CheeseHalf a pound of grated cheese is about 2 cups. The recipe does not name a variety; a firm cheddar-type cheese suits the dish.
- YieldServes four as a main dish, six as a side. Let it stand five minutes before cutting so the layers hold.
Baked noodle-and-cheese dishes of this kind spread through American home cooking in the early twentieth century as packaged egg noodles became a pantry staple alongside macaroni, and cheese sauce -- a standard white sauce with cheese stirred in, widely taught in domestic-science courses -- became a common binder for vegetable casseroles. Layering spinach into it did double duty: it stretched the dish and suited the period's growing enthusiasm for green vegetables.