No. 2986

Tagliatelli in Croustade

Tagliatelli en Croustade

Cook half a pound of tagliarelli (small thin bands of paste three-sixteenths of an inch wide) in salted water for a few moments; drain and put them into a sautoir to season with salt, pepper and nutmeg; add a little bechamel (No. 409), fresh butter, grated cheese and four raw egg-yolks. Butter and line a mold or ring eight inches in diameter and an inch and a half in height; fill it with the preparation, dredge the top with fresh bread-crumbs, besprinkle with butter and cook in a moderate oven; when the paste is done slip the croustade on a round dish and serve with a separate tomato sauce (No. 549) mingled with meat glaze (No. 402) and veloute (No. 415).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives quantities for the pasta and the yolks and leaves the rest to judgment, which is normal for The Epicurean. The dish is a baked pasta timbale unmolded whole, so the binding and the mold matter more than anything else.

The hinge: bind it firmly enough to unmoldFour yolks to half a pound of pasta is what holds the ring together when it is slipped onto the dish. Ranhofer asks only for "a little" bechamel, and it should be thick — a loose, soupy mixture will slump the moment the mold comes off.
"Croustade" here is the crumb crust"Croustade" here is not pastry -- No pastry is named in this recipe. The mold is buttered and lined (Ranhofer does not say with what), and the top is dredged with crumbs and browned, which is as close to a crust as the dish gets.
"A few moments" means barely at allFresh egg pasta cut three-sixteenths of an inch wide needs one to two minutes in boiling salted water. It cooks again in the oven, so pull it while it is still firm.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, used off the heat here purely for mixing and seasoning. Any wide bowl or skillet does the same work.
Moderate ovenRoughly 350F by the usual modern reading of the term. Reckon on something like 30 to 40 minutes, until the yolks have set and the crumbs are golden; the ring is only an inch and a half deep.
Lining the moldButter the ring generously; Ranhofer says to line it but not with what, and the crumbs he names are fresh ones for the top. Letting it rest a few minutes out of the oven before turning out, and a parchment collar on the base, are sensible insurance.
The cross-referenced saucesNo. 409 is béchamel, No. 549 tomato sauce, No. 402 meat glaze and No. 415 velouté. Modern equivalents work: a thick white sauce for the binding, and for serving, tomato sauce loosened with a little reduced veal or chicken stock and a spoonful of velouté.
CheeseThe recipe says only "grated cheese"; Parmesan is the likely intention in this run of dishes. Grate it fine and add it while the pasta is warm so it melts into the bechamel.
YieldAn eight-inch ring serves six as a first course, or four as a main with the sauce passed separately.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years' cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and it treats Italian pasta the way a French kitchen of the period did: as a farinaceous preparation to be bound, molded, crusted and served with a compound sauce rather than tossed and eaten loose. The name comes from the Italian tagliare, to cut — the noodle is sliced from a rolled sheet, and Ranhofer specifies the width in sixteenths of an inch. His spelling wobbles between "tagliatelli" and "tagliarelli" within a single entry. The dish sits in a run of molded timbales and croustades that reflects the era's taste for food presented as architecture, where a ring that holds its shape on the platter counted for as much as the flavor inside it.