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Macaroni or Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce
Break the macaroni or spaghetti into short lengths. Cover with plenty of boiling water and boil until soft, twenty to thirty minutes generally being required. Stir occasionally with a fork to prevent sticking to the kettle. Turn into a sieve and drain thoroughly. Place in the serving-dish and cover with tomato sauce. Serve grated cheese with it. This cheese may be mixed with the tomato sauce. Some people prefer spaghetti cooked in long pieces. To do this place the ends in boiling water and coil it as it softens.
A plain turn-of-the-century treatment of dried pasta, written for cooks who had not yet met the idea of al dente. Only the timing really needs overturning.
- Boil it far lessTwenty to thirty minutes will reduce modern dried macaroni or spaghetti to paste. Follow the package: 8 to 12 minutes for most shapes, tasting a minute or two before the stated time so the strands still have resistance at the centre.
- Salt the waterThe recipe calls only for "plenty of boiling water" and does not mention salt. Add about a tablespoon of salt per four quarts; pasta cannot be salted properly after the fact.
- Do not rinse"Drain thoroughly" is right, but stop there. Rinsing washes off the surface starch that makes tomato sauce cling, and a few spoonfuls of the cooking water stirred into the sauce will help it coat.
- The kettleHere this means simply the large pot, not a modern tea kettle. Use plenty of water and a wide pan so the pieces move freely; stirring in the first minute matters more than stirring throughout.
- Tomato sauceNone is specified here. Any plain cooked tomato sauce suits: about two cups for a pound of pasta.
- The cheeseGrated cheese in this context means a hard grating cheese, Parmesan or a dry aged domestic equivalent. Grate it fresh; pre-grated tubs will not melt into the sauce the same way.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. Reckoning a pound of dried pasta with two cups of sauce, it serves about four as a main dish, six as a side.