No. 2961

Macaroni, Parisian Style

Macaroni a la Parisienne

Boil a pound of macaroni in salted water from twelve to fifteen minutes, putting it in only when the water boils. Avoid breaking it for it can always be cut the desired length after cooking. When cooked drain and return it to the saucepan, season with a little salt, pepper and nutmeg, and add half parmesan and half Swiss cheese, finishing with a little bechamel sauce (No. 409) and a large piece of butter. Toss in the saucepan, without using a spoon, and when well mingled and the cheese forms into threads then it is done. Pour it into a vegetable dish and serve.

← No. 2960 Macaroni, Neapolitan Style Macaroni, Rice & Farinaceous No. 2962 Macaroni with Cream and Trufffles →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives proportions for the macaroni and none for the cheese or sauce, which is normal for a book written for cooks who worked in his kitchen. A few decisions have to be made for you.

The hinge: toss, do not stir"Without using a spoon" means shaking and swinging the pan so the strands slide over each other. A spoon drags the cheese into clumps and shreds the pasta; the pan motion is what pulls the melted cheese out into the threads he uses as his doneness test.
Cheese quantityUnstated in the original. For a pound of macaroni, about 6 oz total grated cheese, half Parmigiano-Reggiano and half Gruyère or Emmental, is a reasonable working amount. Grate both finely so they melt before the pasta cools.
BéchamelHis No. 409 is the book's béchamel; look it up before proportioning, as period versions are not always a plain milk-and-roux. About a cup, kept loose enough to pour, works here; it is a binder, not a blanket. Have it hot when the pasta is drained.
The macaroni itselfHe means long, hollow, straight macaroni, which is why he warns against breaking it. Twelve to fifteen minutes suits that heavier old extrusion; modern dried tubes or bucatini will be al dente in 8 to 11, so go by the package and taste.
Save some cooking waterNot in the original, but the sauce sets fast once the cheese goes in. A few spoonfuls of the starchy boiling water loosens it without thinning the flavour.
Nutmeg"A little" means a few scrapes from a whole nutmeg off a fine grater. Pre-ground jarred nutmeg is duller and more resinous, and it is easy to overshoot with it.
YieldA pound of macaroni served this richly will give roughly four generous main portions, or six to eight as the vegetable-dish side course the recipe implies. It does not reheat well; the cheese breaks and the sauce turns grainy.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its several macaroni recipes show how a French kitchen of the period handled an Italian food: not as Italian cooking but as an entry in the repertoire, dressed in Parmesan, Swiss cheese and béchamel. "A la Parisienne" here most likely signals that treatment rather than any particular connection to Paris as a source of the dish. Pairing a hard Italian grating cheese with an Alpine melting cheese was common in French kitchens; the Parmesan supplies salt and savour, the Swiss the stretch that gives Ranhofer his visual test. Long unbroken macaroni, the kind he tells the cook not to snap, was a usual imported form in the nineteenth century, and the short elbows most Americans now picture became dominant later.