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Italian Macaroni
Place two pounds of beef, well larded with strips of salt pork, and one or two chopped onions, in a covered kettle on the back of one or two chopped onions, in a covered kettle on the back of the stove, until it throws out its juice and is a rich brown; add a quart of tomatoes seasoned with pepper and salt, and allow the mixture to simmer for two or three hours. Take the quantity of macaroni desired and boil in water for twenty minutes, after which put one layer of the boiled macaroni in the bottom of a pudding dish, cover with some of the above mixture, then a layer of grated cheese, and so on in layers till the dish is filled, having a layer of cheese on the top ; place in the oven an hour, or until it is a rich brown. Commence early in the morning to prepare this dish.
This is a braise and a bake in one recipe: a beef and tomato sugo cooked down for hours, then layered with pasta and cheese. Two instructions need adjusting, and one line in the original is a printer's error.
- The duplicated line"on the back of one or two chopped onions, in a covered kettle on the back of" is a typesetting slip repeated from the previous line. Read it as: two pounds of beef larded with salt pork plus one or two chopped onions, in a covered kettle.
- "Back of the stove"On a wood range the back was the coolest zone, holding a covered pot at a bare simmer. The modern equivalent is the lowest burner setting with the lid on, or a 300F oven, until the meat has given up its juices and browned in them.
- Boil the macaroni lessTwenty minutes suited the thicker dried macaroni common in the period. Modern pasta will generally need appreciably less, and since it goes on to bake in a wet sauce, drain it while still firm at the centre.
- A quart of tomatoesMost likely put-up tomatoes, though fresh tomatoes measured by the quart are possible. Reckon on roughly 32 ounces: two standard 14.5-oz cans with their liquid comes close, or about two pounds of fresh tomatoes peeled and chopped.
- LardingThreading strips of salt pork through a lean cut with a larding needle. A chuck or blade roast cut into large pieces, browned in a little rendered salt pork or bacon, gets you the same fat and salt without the needle.
- The cheese"grated cheese" in recipes of this kind normally indicates a hard grating cheese. Parmesan or a dry aged domestic cheese would suit; a firm cheddar will also work.
- Oven and timeA "rich brown" top on an already-cooked dish wants 375F for 30 to 40 minutes, not the full hour specified for a slower, less predictable range. Cover it if the surface colours before the centre is hot through.
- Vessel and yieldA pudding dish is a deep baking dish; a 9x13 pan or a 3-quart casserole is about the right size. The recipe leaves the macaroni quantity to the cook; with two pounds of beef and a generous half pound of macaroni it will serve six to eight.
Recipes titled "Italian Macaroni" or "Macaroni Italian Style" appear across nineteenth-century American and English books, and what they usually mean is macaroni with tomato and grated cheese as distinct from the boiled-and-baked-in-milk version that became macaroni and cheese. The long-simmered beef and tomato base here is recognisably a ragù or sugo, the meat cooked mainly for the sake of the sauce, and the instruction to start early in the morning is honest about what that took on a wood-fired range.