Macaroni

(c) Antilived

After having stewed the macaroni in stock, leave a sufficient quantity of it to make the macaroni thick. Add four ounces of butter and one pound of grated cheese. Parmesan, Gruyere, or common cheese may be used. Pepper this, and mix it together on a dish which has been well buttered. Powder the surface with the cheese. Put the dish on a stove of gentle heat. Cover it with a four de campagne or dress it with a salamander.




Macaroni

Take half a pound of good macaroni. Dress it in broth. Drain it in a sieve. Put into a pan half a pound of grated cheese – equal parts of Parmesan and Gruyere, or other cheese may be used – with rather less than two ounces of butter, some peppercorns, and nutmeg. Put the macaroni into this, with two or three spoonfuls of cream. When the macaroni may be drawn up in a thread it is done. Put it into the dish in which it is to be served. Place a four de campagne on it for three quarters of an hour, and serve it when it is of a good colour.

Macaroni en timbale

Prepare the macaroni by the first receipt, with the difference that instead of putting it on a buttered dish it is placed in a buttered mould, with a paste (see paste) of about the thickness of a florin at the bottom and sides. This mould is put over a gentle fire. It may be cooked in an oven, or with a stove and a four de campagne. It is served when it is of a good colom being turned out of the mould.

Macaroni au gratin

Prepare the macaroni by the second receipt. Put into a larded dish a layer of cheese and of butter, and a layer of macaroni and so continue. Dress it in an oven.

Macaroni and chestnuts, or macaroni aux marrons

Take twenty newly dressed chestnuts. Take off the peels and the skins on the inside, and mix them with the macaroni, of which there should be a third less than required, on account of the chestnuts.

From Treasury of French Cookery: A Collection of the Best French Recipes Arranged and Adapted for English Households (1866) by Harriett Toogood

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Notes: Mrs Toogood's idea of macaroni appears to correspond more to something like spaghetti or even tagliatelle than what we think of now, from her instruction to consider it ready when it “may be drawn up in a thread”. Goodness knows what an Italian would make of her recipes, or what a modern cook would think of her reliance on butter and cream.
• A four de campagne (meaning “military campaign” rather than “countryside”) was an earthenware or metal device which could be filled with coals then covered with a lid, allowing the food inside to be cooked more indirectly that directly over the fire. In this case, she is using the heated lid alone to heat the dish from above, just like the salamander she mentions, and which is still in use in most professional kitchens. Nowadays we would simply use the oven, but in her day most homes would not have been equipped with a domestic oven.
• A florin was a British coin worth two shillings, or one-tenth of one pound. At the time of publication, the unusual Gothic florin was in circulation, so called because all of the inscriptions appeared in Gothic script. The coin measured 30mm in diameter and weighed 11.3g, but nobody seems to have an idea how thick it was. As thick as a coin, let's say for simplicity's sake.
• The reference to "paste" is never picked up again, however she uses the word to mean pasta, pastry and simply paste. In this case she appears to have pastry in mind.
• In her introduction, Mrs Toogood explains her receipts (a common word for recipes) are translated from two French works, which she nonetheless neglects to identify. This book runs to 280 pages, and thousands of receipts in her remarkably spare style. I feel we shall be returning to her often.