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Stewed Macaroni
Simmer one-fourth pound of macaroni in enough water to cover; when soft, turn it onto a sieve, drain, and leave until cold. Put in one teaspoonful of salt, taking care not to allow the macaroni to break or lose its shape. Chop very fine all the white meat of a fowl and three or four slices of ham, and season to taste with salt, white pepper and grated Parmesan cheese. Beat well with the yolks of three eggs, and the white of one separately. Mix the minced fowl and ham into the beaten yolks, stir in one-fourth pint of cream, then beat in lightly the frothed white of egg, and carefully mix in the macaroni. Butter a mould, place the mixture into it, cover it closely, and steam for an hour. Turn out onto a hot dish, pour some gravy over, and serve hot.
A steamed macaroni timbale of the kind that filled the middle of an Edwardian menu: cooked pasta bound with minced chicken, ham, cream and eggs, then unmoulded whole. The whole point is a clean turn-out, which depends on the mould being sealed and the water never boiling hard.
- The hinge: gentle steamKeep the water at a bare simmer for the full hour. A rolling boil drives the custard too fast, the eggs curdle, and the mould weeps liquid when you invert it. A covered mould set in a deep pan of hot water, or a water bath in a low oven, both work.
- QuantitiesOne-fourth pound of macaroni is 4 oz dry. One-fourth pint of cream is 4 to 5 fl oz depending on whether Oscar meant a US or an imperial pint; half a cup is close enough for a mixture of this size.
- The saltAs written the teaspoonful of salt appears after the macaroni has been drained and left to cool; it was most likely intended for the cooking water.
- Macaroni of the periodMacaroni then often came as long thick tubes and was boiled considerably longer than pasta is today. Modern dried elbows or short tubes need 8 to 10 minutes, and for a mould you want them just short of al dente since they go on cooking in the custard.
- "A fowl"A fowl was an older boiling hen. The recipe does not say whether the white meat is raw or cooked, though cooked meat from a poached bird is the likelier reading. Use the breast of a poached or roasted chicken, roughly 6 to 8 oz once chopped fine.
- The hamThree or four slices means carving slices off a cooked ham, roughly 3 oz. Cooked country ham or a good boiled ham is right; deli-thin sandwich ham gives a limp texture.
- Egg whitesOnly one white is whipped and folded in; the other two are surplus. Fold it in last and quickly, or you lose the lift that keeps the timbale from turning dense.
- Buttering the mouldButter it heavily and cover the surface with buttered paper or foil under the lid, so condensation does not drip onto the top. A 1-quart charlotte mould or pudding basin suits this volume.
- The gravyNo sauce recipe is given. A light chicken velouté, or the reduced poaching liquid thickened with a little roux, suits this better than a dark meat gravy. Serves four as a first course, two or three as a lunch dish.
Oscar Tschirky's book comes from a period when Italian pasta was well established in the grand hotel repertoire but was still often handled as a vehicle for French technique rather than a dish in its own right. This is essentially a timbale de macaroni: pasta bound with forcemeat and egg, steamed in a mould and sauced, a form Escoffier and his contemporaries applied to everything from sweetbreads to rice. The use of cooked white meat and sliced ham suggests a made-over dish, of the sort found in nineteenth-century hotel and household cookery for turning the remains of a poached fowl into something presentable enough to send to the dining room. Parmesan appears here as a seasoning measured by taste rather than as a topping.