Consomme, Macaroni

A clear soup garnished with pasta, from a period when dried macaroni was thicker-walled and far harder than today's extruded product. The one thing to change is the boiling time.

• Thirty-five minutes is wrong nowModern dried macaroni is done in 8-10 minutes; at thirty-five it will be paste. Cook it to just under al dente, since it will sit in hot broth before it reaches the table.
• Cook the pasta separately, as writtenBoiling it in the consommé would cloud the broth with released starch and thicken it. The separate pot and the draining step exist for clarity, not convenience.
• The consomméThe consomme -- The recipe assumes a clarified stock made elsewhere in the book; period consommes were typically beef or veal stock cleared with egg white and lean minced meat, then strained. A good low-sodium stock, well skimmed and strained, will stand in, though it will not have the same glassy body.
• Quantities and yieldThe recipe does not say how much consomme to make. Four ounces of dry macaroni would suit something like 2 quarts, serving six to eight as a first course. The soup should read as broth with pasta in it, not the reverse.
• SaltHalf a teaspoon in a quart of pasta water is light by modern habit, but the consommé is already seasoned and the Parmesan adds more. Taste the finished bowl before adding any.
• Cut and shapeInch lengths mean the long straight macaroni of the period, sold in tubes to be broken down. Short-cut elbows or ditalini give the same result without the cutting.
• The hot tureenWarming the tureen and the bowls matters more here than in a thick soup — a thin clear broth loses heat quickly, and the pasta absorbs some of it on contact.