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Macaroni, Polonaise
Plunge three-quarters of a pound Italian macaroni in three quarts boiling water with teaspoon salt and boil forty minutes. Drain on sieve, replace in the dried saucepan, add ounce butter, ounce grated Parmesan cheese and ounce grated Swiss cheese, mix well without breaking. Dress on a deep hot dish. Place two tablespoons melted butter in a black frying pan with two tablespoons fresh bread crumbs, toss well on fire until the crumbs are a nice golden colour, then pour over the macaroni and serve.
A simple buttered-and-crumbed macaroni that needs only two adjustments: the boiling time and the ounce measures.
- Forty minutes is the one thing to ignoreModern dried semolina macaroni is done in 8-12 minutes; check the box and taste from about a minute before. Long boiling times of this order were usual in period English-language recipes, whose macaroni was generally a thicker tube and was expected to finish quite soft.
- Ounces to spoonsAn ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons. An ounce of grated Parmesan is roughly a third of a cup loosely packed; an ounce of grated Swiss (Gruyere or Emmental) is nearer a quarter cup, as it grates coarser and packs denser. Together that is a light dressing rather than a sauce.
- Salt the water harderA teaspoon in three quarts barely registers. A tablespoon or more of salt per three quarts is the modern standard, since this dish has no other seasoning built into it.
- Keep a ladle of cooking waterThe recipe drains the pasta completely and returns it to a dry pan, which leaves the butter and cheese prone to clumping. A few tablespoons of the starchy water stirred in as you mix gives a glossy coating.
- The black frying panThat means cast iron or heavy black steel, chosen for even browning of the crumbs. Any heavy skillet works; the point is control, as fresh crumbs go from golden to burnt in seconds.
- Fresh crumbs, not dryGrate or pulse day-old bread with the crust removed. Packaged dry crumbs absorb the butter without softening and give a sandy rather than crisp topping.
- Timing and serviceBrown the crumbs while the pasta boils and pour them over at the table, or they soften. The deep hot dish matters: warm it in a low oven first.
- YieldThree-quarters of a pound serves four as a side or a light main course.
A la polonaise — in the Polish style — is French kitchen shorthand for anything finished with butter-fried breadcrumbs, most familiarly asparagus or cauliflower, where the crumbs are often joined by sieved hard-boiled egg and parsley. Here the garnish is applied to macaroni, and the dish sits at the meeting point of two traditions: the Italian habit of dressing pasta with butter and grated cheese, and the classical French repertoire's naming system, which labelled preparations by nationality whether or not the country in question would have recognised them. That double borrowing is characteristic of the grand-hotel cooking of the turn of the twentieth century, when a single menu might run through half of Europe. The blend of Parmesan and Swiss is a period signature too: Parmesan for savour, Gruyere or Emmental for the softer melt.