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Spaghetti
(Amalfi.) Parboil and drain 1/4 pound of spaghetti, add 1/2 pint of veal broth and 2 tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, preferably Parmesan, mix well, pour into a dish, arrange the yolks of 6 hard-boiled eggs, at intervals, and a thin layer of puff paste, on the top. Bake it until brown.
A small baked pasta with a puff-paste lid, closer to a timballo than to anything served in a bowl. The whole thing hinges on undercooking the spaghetti so it can absorb the broth in the oven.
- Parboil means half-cookedBoil the spaghetti about half the time on the package o longer, so it is still stiff at the centre. It finishes cooking in the broth under the pastry; fully cooked pasta will collapse into paste.
- Half a pint of brothAbout a cup (8 fl oz by US measure; 10 fl oz if the book's measures are imperial). With 4 oz of dry spaghetti that is a generous amount of liquid, which is the point: the pastry seals it in and the pasta drinks it. A shallow baking dish, so the layer is not much deeper than an inch.
- Veal brothRarely sold now. A light unsalted chicken stock is the closest match in body and mildness; avoid dark beef stock, which will overwhelm the Parmesan.
- Puff pasteStore-bought puff pastry, rolled thin and laid over the top like a lid. Trim it to the rim and cut a vent or two, or the steam from the broth will lift it off in one piece.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe only says "bake it until brown" and specifies no heat. Puff paste normally wants a hot oven, so somewhere around 400-425F for 20-25 minutes, until the pastry is risen and well coloured, is a reasonable modern reading.
- The six yolksSet the hard-boiled yolks in the pasta at intervals so each portion gets one or two, and press them down slightly so they stay put. The recipe leaves you six cooked whites; chop them into a salad rather than adding them here, where they turn rubbery.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified. Taste the broth before it goes in; Parmesan and stock together may be enough.
- YieldTwo as a light main course, three or four as a side. It should be served straight from the dish while the pastry is still crisp.
The tag "Amalfi" is the sort of local attribution Anglo-American travel cookbooks of around 1900 collected with more enthusiasm than precision. The construction itself -- pasta bound with broth and cheese, studded with egg and closed under a pastry lid -- belongs to the southern Italian tradition of the baked timballo or pasticcio, in which pasta is enclosed in a crust and cut like a pie. Grated Parmesan is specified only "preferably," leaving another hard cheese as an option.