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Omelette, Milanaise
Boil three ounces macaroni in a quart water with a teaspoon salt for forty minutes; thoroughly drain on a sieve, then cut into half-inch pieces. Place in a small sautoire, with a light tablespoon melted butter, one gill hot tomato sauce, one saltspoon salt and a saltspoon white pepper; gently toss and cook for five minutes, then add two tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese; mix gently with a fork while cooking for a minute, shift the pan on the corner of the range and keep warm.
Prepare an omelette exactly, and just before folding it up spread one-third of the macaroni well over the flat omelette. Then fold up, turn on a hot dish, arrange the balance of the macaroni around the omelette and serve.
A filled omelette from the era when a book like this assumed you had already mastered the plain one. Two things need translating: the vessel names and the pasta timing.
- Forty minutes is far too longModern elbow macaroni is done in 8-10 minutes. Cook it to just short of al dente, since it goes back on the heat for another six minutes with the sauce.
- Old measuresA gill is half a cup. A saltspoon is a scant quarter teaspoon. A "light tablespoon" of butter means a level one rather than heaped, so about half an ounce.
- SautoireA straight-sided shallow pan, essentially a modern sauté pan or a small skillet. Nothing goes in the oven here.
- "Shift the pan on the corner of the range"Coal ranges had cooler edges. Move the macaroni to the lowest burner setting, or off the heat entirely with a lid on, while you make the omelette.
- "Prepare an omelette exactly"The book is pointing back to its own plain omelette entry, which is not reproduced here; this page gives no egg count or heat level. The dish implies a French rolled omelette, cooked in butter and rolled while the centre is still soft, rather than a set, browned one.
- Filling ratioA third of the macaroni goes inside and two-thirds is banked around the plate. Overfilling is the usual failure: too much inside and the omelette splits as it rolls.
- The cheeseGrate the Parmesan finely. The recipe has it stirred in with a fork and cooked a further minute; keep the heat gentle and stir only long enough to coat, as prolonged high heat turns the cheese grainy and makes the sauce oily.
- YieldRoughly one generous serving, or two modest ones if the omelette is cut, though the recipe never states how many eggs the omelette uses. Scale the macaroni rather than the eggs if you want more.
"Milanaise" in classical French kitchen usage signals macaroni, tomato and Parmesan, sometimes with ham and tongue in the fuller version -- shorthand for the Italian north as read through a Paris kitchen. The label attached itself to a whole family of dishes in the late nineteenth century, from timbales to cutlets, and turns up in the garnish glossaries of the period as a fixed formula. Its appearance in an "international" collection reflects the way such books were assembled: the world's cooking arrived in English translation via professional French terminology, which is why an omelette with pasta in it carries a French adjective for an Italian city. The instruction to "prepare an omelette exactly" is also of its time, assuming a reader who has worked through the book's foundations in order and needs no repetition.