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Timbales of Macaroni
Plunge four ounces macaroni in two quarts boiling water with a teaspoon salt and boil forty minutes, drain on sieve, then cut in half-inch pieces. Place in a small saucepan with one gill milk, a half gill cream, two saltspoons salt, half saltspoon cayenne and half saltspoon grated nutmeg, then cook five minutes, add an ounce grated Parmesan cheese and two egg yolks. Briskly mix with spoon while heating for two minutes. Lightly butter six individual pudding moulds, then fill with the macaroni, lay on a tin, pour hot water up to half their height, set in oven ten minutes, remove, and unmould as directed.
A small savoury custard bound with macaroni, baked in a water bath and turned out. Two things in the original need correcting outright: the pasta cooking time and the missing oven temperature.
- Forty minutes is far too longLong boiling times were the norm in period cookbooks, but modern extruded macaroni is done in 8 to 10 minutes. Boil it just to firm-tender, since it will cook further in the milk and again in the oven.
- Gills and saltspoonsOne gill is 1/2 cup, so the half gill of cream is 1/4 cup. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon: two saltspoons salt is 1/2 teaspoon, and half a saltspoon of cayenne is 1/8 teaspoon, which is assertive but correct for the dish.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, 350F, is right for a custard in a bain-marie; hotter and the yolks curdle at the edges before the centre sets.
- The hinge: temper the yolksThe yolks go into a hot pan. Mix briskly and keep the pan over gentle heat only, or draw it off entirely and stir the yolks in off the fire. Two minutes of hard boiling here scrambles them and the timbales will weep.
- Ten minutes may not be enoughDepending on the size of the moulds, allow 15 to 20 minutes at 350F. They are done when the centre is just set and a knife tip comes out clean; overbaking makes them spongy and porous.
- "Unmould as directed"The recipe points to an instruction given elsewhere in the book; the usual practice is to let the moulds stand a minute or two out of the water, run a thin knife round the rim, invert onto a warm plate and lift the mould away. Buttering thoroughly, including the rim, matters more than the timing.
- MouldsIndividual pudding moulds means 4 to 5 oz dariole moulds or ramekins. Standard 6 oz ramekins work but give shallower timbales; fill them no more than three-quarters.
- Yield and servingSix small timbales, small enough to serve as an entrée or as a garnish for roast meat rather than a main course. A tomato sauce or a little brown gravy suits them, though the recipe specifies none. Serve them hot; they are dull once cooled.
A timbale takes its name from a word generally traced to the French for a kettledrum — which itself reached French via Spanish atabal from Arabic al-tabl — and by extension for a drum-shaped cup or mould: the form dictates the name, not the filling, which is why nineteenth-century cookbooks offer timbales of chicken, sweetbreads, spinach and macaroni alike. Dishes of this kind sat squarely in the grand-restaurant repertoire that The International Cook Book was compiled from: the mould, the water bath and the turning-out are all hallmarks of professional kitchen work adapted for the household cook with ambitions. The pairing of macaroni with Parmesan, cream and nutmeg is older still and unmistakably Italian in origin, though by 1900 it had been thoroughly naturalised into French service.