Maccaroni à la Reine

Instructions

1. Boil eight ounces of maccaroni in the usual way.
2. By the time it is sufficiently tender, dissolve gently ten ounces of any rich, well flavoured white cheese in full three-quarters of a pint of good cream.
3. Add a little salt, a rather full seasoning of cayenne, from half to a whole saltspoonful of pounded mace, and a couple of ounces of sweet fresh butter.
4. The cheese should, in the first instance, be sliced very thin, and taken quite free of the hard part adjoining the rind; stir it in the cream without intermission until it is entirely dissolved, and the whole is perfectly smooth.
5. Toss the maccaroni, previously well drained, gently in it; or, after it is dished, pour the cheese equally over the maccaroni.
6. The whole, in either case, may be thickly covered before it is sent to table with fine crumbs of bread fried of a pale gold colour, and dried perfectly, either before the fire or in an oven, when such an addition is considered an improvement.
7. As a matter of precaution, it is better to boil the cream before the cheese is melted in it.
8. Rich white sauce, or bechamel, made not very thick, with an additional ounce or two of butter, may be used to vary and enrich this preparation.
9. If Parmesan cheese be used for it, it must of course be grated; but it will not easily blend with the other ingredients so as to be smooth. A portion of Stilton, free from the blue mould, would have a good effect in the present receipt. Half the quantity may be served.
10. Proportions: Maccaroni, 1/2 lb.; cheese, 10 oz.; good cream, 3/4 pint (or rich white sauce); butter, 2 oz. (or more); little salt, fine cayenne, and mace.