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Cheese Course (II INGREDIENTS for dish)
II. INGREDIENTS for dish for 6 persons. lb. of pipe or riband macaroni, ½ pint of milk, 1/2 pint of veal or beef gravy, the yolks of 2 eggs, 4 tablespoonfuls of cream, 3 oz. of grated Parmesan or Cheshire cheese, 1 oz. of butter. AVERAGE Cost, 1s. 3d.
Wash the macaroni and boil it in the gravy and milk until quite tender, without being broken. Drain it and put it into a rather deep dish. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the cream and 2 tablespoonfuls of the liquor the macaroni was boiled in; make this sufficiently hot to thicken, but do not allow it to boil; pour it over the måcaroni, over which sprinkle the grated cheese MACARONI. and the butter, broken into small pieces; brown with a salamander, or before the fire and serve.
TIME.-1 to 1 hour to boil the macaroni, 5 minutes to thicken the eggs and cream, 5 minutes to brown.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Macaroni (as usually served with the
A Victorian macaroni cheese in which the pasta is boiled in gravy and milk rather than water, then bound with an egg-and-cream custard and browned on top. It is richer and softer than the roux-based version most cooks expect.
- The hinge: do not boil the custardThe yolks beaten with cream and a little of the cooking liquor must be warmed only until they thicken to a pouring sauce. A simmer will scramble them and the dish will be grainy under the cheese.
- Ambiguous quantitiesThe weight of macaroni and the quantity of milk are unclear as printed. For 6 people, working from the other proportions, something in the region of 1/2 lb pasta and 1/2 pint milk against the 1/2 pint of gravy is consistent with the rest of the method.
- Pipe and riband macaroniPipe macaroni is the familiar hollow tube; riband macaroni is a flat ribbon closer to modern fettuccine or mafalde. Either works, but keep the pieces long and unbroken as the recipe insists.
- Cooking pasta in liquid, not waterA pint of gravy and milk will not cover half a pound of macaroni in a wide pan. Use a narrow, deep saucepan, keep the heat low, and stir often, since the milk sugars and the pasta starch will catch on the base.
- TimingModern dried macaroni needs 8-12 minutes, not the three-quarters to an hour the older pasta required. Cook until tender but still whole; the recipe then has you drain it, reserving 2 tablespoonfuls of the cooking liquor to beat into the yolks and cream.
- The gravyVeal or beef gravy here is best read as the strained cooking juices or a light reduced stock rather than a thickened brown sauce, since the macaroni is boiled in it. A good unsalted beef or veal stock gives the right savour; taste before adding salt, as the Parmesan brings plenty.
- SalamanderA salamander was an iron plate heated red in the fire and held over the dish to brown it. Use an overhead grill or broiler at high heat, 2-3 minutes with the dish close to the element, and watch it, as the egg beneath will curdle if it heats through.
- CheeseParmesan gives the sharper, drier finish; Cheshire melts to something creamier and milder. Grate either finely so it browns before the custard overcooks.
Macaroni reached English tables as an expensive Italian import and was long treated as a savoury dish rather than a pasta course, served after the meat or, as here, in the cheese course at the end of dinner. The average cost of 1s. 3d. is characteristic of Mrs Beeton's household accounting, which priced every dish so a mistress could check her cook's spending, and the Parmesan-or-Cheshire alternative shows how readily imported cheese was substituted with a good English hard cheese when the budget required it.