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Macaroni with Cream
Boil in plenty of salted water for three quarters of an hour three-fourths of a pound of macaroni, adding one-half ounce of butter and one onion stuck with two cloves. Drain well, and put it back into a saucepan with one-third of a pound each of butter, grated Parmesan and grated Gruyere cheese, a pinch of pepper, and a little nutmeg. Moisten with one-half pint of white broth and four tablespoonfuls of cream. Cook all together for five minutes, stirring well, and when the macaroni is soft. dish it up, and serve.
A Waldorf macaroni and cheese, built as a stovetop sauce rather than a baked casserole. The one number to ignore is the boiling time.
- Boil for 10 minutes, not 45Commercial macaroni of the 1890s was a thicker, harder-dried tube, and long boiling times are common in cookbooks of the period. Modern dried elbows or ziti collapse into paste well before that. Cook to just short of al dente, since the pasta finishes in the cheese and broth for five more minutes.
- QuantitiesThree-fourths of a pound of macaroni is 12 oz. One-half pint is 1 cup. One-third of a pound each of butter and the two cheeses works out to about 5 oz butter and roughly 1 1/2 cups of each cheese, grated — extravagantly rich by current taste; halving the butter gives a lighter sauce if preferred.
- White brothIn period usage, white broth is a veal or chicken stock made without browning the bones. Use a plain light chicken stock; avoid anything dark, reduced or heavily seasoned, since the Parmesan and Gruyère bring plenty of salt.
- The onion stuck with clovesThis is an onion piqué, boiled with the pasta to perfume the water and then discarded with the cooking liquid. Peel the onion, push two whole cloves into it, and fish it out before draining.
- Keep the pan off high heatThe sauce is butter, cheese and a little liquid held in suspension. Add the cheese off the boil and stir steadily over low heat; if it boils hard the Gruyère strings and the fat separates out.
- Season lastSalt is called for only in the pasta water. Taste after the cheese has melted and adjust then. Grate the nutmeg fresh — a pinch, not a spoonful.
- YieldServes four to six as a side dish, or four as a light main course. Serve at once; reheated, it tightens and needs a splash more broth.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf dining rooms in an era when Italian pasta was arriving in American hotel kitchens by way of French technique, and this recipe shows the seam clearly: an Italian noodle, two Alpine and Italian cheeses, and a French onion piqué and white broth doing the seasoning work. The absence of a crumb topping or an oven is worth noticing — the baked macaroni pudding was the older Anglo-American form, familiar from Mary Randolph and Eliza Leslie, while this is served straight from the saucepan in the continental manner. Gruyère paired with Parmesan was often said to suit a cheese sauce that had to melt smoothly and taste of something; the long boiling time, which looks like an error now, reflects imported macaroni that was dried far harder than anything sold today.