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Macaroni with Cheese
Put plenty of water in a large saucepan together with a lump of salt, and place it over the fire; when the water boils quickly throw in the macaroni, first breaking it into moderate lengths. Stir frequently until tender then pour in a jugful of cold water, and drain the water off. Put about one-fourth pound of butter in a stewpan, and place it over the fire until lightly browned; turn the macaroni onto a hot dish, pour over the butter, strew plenty of grated Parmesan cheese over it, and serve.
A plain Italian-style macaroni, closer to pasta al burro than to the baked American casserole. The recipe assumes long tubular macaroni sold in straight lengths, which is why it must be broken before it goes into the pot.
- The butter is the dishThe recipe wants the quarter pound 'lightly browned': melt it over moderate heat until the milk solids just colour and it smells toasted, then use it at once. Take it too far and it is acrid; stop too early and the dish is just buttered noodles.
- "A jugful of cold water"This is the old trick of shocking the pot to arrest cooking before draining. It works, but it also rinses off the surface starch that helps butter and cheese cling. Draining alone is enough if you are serving immediately.
- Cooking timeNone is given because nineteenth-century macaroni was dried hard and could take twenty minutes or more. Modern dried macaroni is done in 8-11 minutes; go by the package and stop a minute short of tender.
- Salt'A lump of salt' most likely refers to a piece broken from a block or cone, salt still being sold in solid form. Use about one tablespoon of table salt per four quarts of water.
- StewpanA shallow, straight-sided pan with a lid. Any wide skillet or sauté pan does the job, and a light-coloured interior helps you judge when the butter has browned.
- ParmesanGrate it yourself from a wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano or a good grana. Pre-grated tubs contain anti-caking agents and will sit on the surface rather than melting into the butter.
- Proportions and yieldA quarter pound of butter suits about one pound of macaroni, which serves four to six as a side or three as a main. Warm the serving dish; the original specifies a hot dish because browned butter congeals fast.
Oscar Tschirky was maitre d'hôtel of the Waldorf, and later of the combined Waldorf-Astoria, from 1893, and his 1896 Cook Book is a compendium of what a large New York hotel kitchen actually turned out — French service, American staples, and some Italian dishes as well. This macaroni belongs to the last group: butter and grated Parmesan, no white sauce, no breadcrumb crust, no baking. That is the Neapolitan and Roman way of dressing pasta, and it arrived in American cookbooks well before the great wave of Italian immigration. The baked, custard-bound "macaroni and cheese" familiar to American readers of the same period is a separate English-descended dish, and this version is the simpler of the pair.