No. 2964

Macaroni Mezzani Grandi a la Cavallotti

Boil half a pound of this macaroni, which is a quarter of an inch in diameter. Chop up separately some cooked lean ham, some cooked cold chicken fillets and livers, mushrooms, and truffles; place these ingredients in a saucepan with reduced gravy (No. 404) and finish with a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce (No. 549); keep this preparation in a bain-marie (Fig. 122). After the macaroni is cooked, drain and return it to the saucepan to mix in a gill of rich gravy; boil while stirring at times and when the gravy is all absorbed add two ounces of butter divided in small pats, also two ounces of grated parmesan. Dress the macaroni in a vegetable dish and spread a part of the sauce over; strew with parmesan, pour a little hazel-nut butter (No. 567) over and serve very hot, with the remaining gravy in a sauce-boat.

← No. 2963 Macaroni with Game Puree Macaroni, Rice & Farinaceous No. 2965 Macaronnicelli a la Lucini →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's baked-pasta-adjacent dish that is really a risotto method applied to macaroni: the pasta finishes in gravy until it is absorbed, then is enriched with butter and parmesan. The named cross-references are to other numbered recipes in Ranhofer's book, and each needs a translation.

The hinge: finish the pasta in the gravyDrain the macaroni while it still has bite and let it absorb the gill of gravy over heat, stirring. That absorption is the whole point of the dish; pasta boiled soft first will turn to paste at this stage.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. For half a pound of macaroni that is the right order of magnitude for full absorption.
Mezzani grandiA large smooth tube about a quarter inch across, which is essentially modern ziti or a large maccheroni. Rigatoni works if you want the ridges to hold sauce; avoid anything under 1/4 inch as it will overcook before the gravy is taken up.
"Reduced gravy" (No. 404)Ranhofer's cross-reference is to his own reduced brown gravy, a thick, glossy sauce much closer to a demi-glace than to pan gravy; check No. 404 for his own formula. A good reduced veal or chicken demi-glace is the practical substitute; thin American-style flour gravy will not carry the dish.
Hazel-nut butter (No. 567)Beurre noisette, butter cooked until the milk solids brown and smell of nuts. There are no hazelnuts in it. A tablespoon or two, poured over at the table, is enough.
Bain-marieThe garnish sits in a covered pan over hot, not boiling, water so the chicken livers and fillets stay warm without cooking further. Livers held over direct heat go grainy in minutes.
TrufflesRanhofer does not say whether fresh or preserved; imported truffles reached American kitchens both ways, and tinned truffle was common. A small tinned truffle or a few grams of fresh, shaved in off the heat, is the honest modern equivalent; truffle oil reads as something else entirely.
YieldThe recipe gives no number of covers. Half a pound of dry pasta plus the meat garnish will serve about three as a course, four within a menu of several courses.
SaltNo salt is specified anywhere. With reduced gravy, ham and parmesan all contributing, season the pasta water lightly and correct only at the end.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades in charge of the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and its pasta chapter is a good measure of how Italian food entered American fine dining: not as Italian cooking but as French technique applied to Italian raw material, with the macaroni bound in a reduced brown gravy and finished with parmesan and browned butter. Ranhofer names dishes after patrons, performers and public figures as a matter of course, and the Cavallotti here may be Felice Cavallotti, the Italian poet, playwright and radical deputy who was a well-known figure in the 1880s and 1890s; the book itself says nothing about the name's origin. The instruction to buy macaroni by a named size, mezzani grandi, is itself a period detail: imported dried pasta reached American kitchens in graded sizes, and a chef writing for professionals could expect the distinction to be understood.