No. 2969

Spaghetti Macaroni, Salvini

Macaroni Spaghetti a la Salvini

Cook in boiling and slightly salted water one pound of spaghetti macaroni, having it boil for twelve to fifteen minutes; drain and dress it in layers in a large vegetable dish or soup tureen, beginning with a layer of the macaroni; strew this with grated parmesan, and continue till finished. Baste over with beef gravy prepared as follows, and serve very hot: Take three pounds of rump of beef. Select a saucepan rather larger than the piece of beef, cover its bottom with bards of fat pork and sliced onions, having sufficient to conceal the bottom; lay in the meat, salt and pepper over, add a clove of garlic and a garnished bunch of parsley, cover the saucepan, put it on the fire and let fall to a glaze. When the meat is browned have two ounces of extract of tomatoes dissolved in a quart of broth (No. 194a), and add a spoonful at a time to the saucepan until the onions are well melted, then continue adding the remainder of the tomatoes and another quart of broth; cook the whole slowly for six hours.

← No. 2968 Spaghetti Macaroni, Queen Style Macaroni, Rice & Farinaceous No. 2970 Noodles a la Lauer →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two recipes in one: a layered spaghetti dish, and a long-braised beef sauce that is really the point of the exercise. Start the beef first — it needs six hours — and boil the pasta at the end.

Start with the glaze"Let fall to a glaze" is the hinge. The covered pan draws liquid out of the beef and onions, and you let that liquid cook away until it caramelizes to a brown film on the bottom. The tomato-and-broth is then added a spoonful at a time to dissolve that film, which is where the sauce gets its color and depth. Rush this and you get pale, thin gravy.
Bards of fat porkThin sheets of pork fatback, or sliced unsmoked salt pork in a pinch. They line the pan so the meat does not scorch during the glazing stage. The recipe specifies only enough to conceal the bottom of the pan.
Extract of tomatoesConcentrated tomato paste, essentially what comes in a small can today. Two ounces is roughly a quarter cup.
Broth No. 194aA cross-reference to the book's own broth recipe, presumably a beef broth; use a good unsalted beef stock. Two quarts total go in, added in two stages.
Six hours, and whereThree pounds of rump should be tender well before six hours; the remaining time serves to reduce the two quarts of liquid. The recipe cooks it slowly on the stove; a low oven with the lid ajar may be easier to manage. Strain the gravy before using.
Pasta timingTwelve to fifteen minutes presumably suited the dried macaroni of the period. Modern extruded spaghetti is done in 8 to 11 minutes; taste it. Drain but do not rinse, so the cheese clings.
Garnished bunch of parsleyA bouquet garni — parsley stems tied with thyme and a bay leaf. Remove it, along with the garlic clove, before serving.
ServingOne pound of spaghetti with the layered parmesan serves four to six as a course. The recipe says nothing about what becomes of the beef; only its gravy is called for here.

A Little History

The name is generally traced to Tommaso Salvini, the Italian tragedian whose American tours in the 1870s and 1880s made him one of the most famous Othellos of the age. Charles Ranhofer, that restaurant's chef, routinely attached the names of visiting singers and actors to dishes. The recipe is a useful marker of where pasta stood in an American luxury kitchen of the 1890s: still called "spaghetti macaroni," served in a soup tureen or vegetable dish rather than plated, layered with parmesan in the manner of a gratin, and sauced not with a tomato sugo but with the strained gravy of a French-style braise — a stufato read through the vocabulary of the Paris kitchen. The recipe assumes bottled or canned tomato extract is on hand.