Dressed Maccaroni

Instructions

1. In dressing maccaroni with Parmesan cheese, unmixed with any of a more mellow nature, there is always a chance of failure, from its tendency to gather into lumps; the inexperienced reader should therefore substitute for it, in part at least, any finely flavoured English cheese.
2. The better to ensure its blending smoothly with the other ingredients (when neither white, nor any other thickened sauce is used with it), dissolve the butter, and stir to it a small teaspoonful of flour, before any liquid is added.
3. Then carefully mix with it the cream or gravy, as directed for Sauce Tournee, Chapter V., and give this a boil before the maccaroni and cheese are added.
4. If gently tossed as these become hot, the whole will be smooth, and the cheese will adhere properly to the paste.
5. Four ounces of pipe maccaroni is sufficient for a small dish, but from six to eight should be prepared for a family party where it is liked.
6. The common English mode of dressing it is with grated cheese, butter, and cream, or milk.
7. French cooks substitute generally a spoonful or two of very strong rich jellied gravy for the cream; the Italians toss it in rich brown gravy, with sufficient grated cheese to flavour the whole strongly, and send it to table also simply laid into a good Espagnole or brown gravy (that drawn from the stufato, for example), accompanied by a plate of grated cheese.
8. Another, and an easy mode of dressing it is to boil and drain it well, and to put it into a deep dish, strewing grated cheese on every layer, and adding bits of fresh butter to it.
9. The top, in this case, should be covered with a layer of fine bread-crumbs, mixed with grated cheese; these should be moistened plentifully with clarified butter, and colour given to them in the oven, or before the fire; the crumbs may be omitted, and a layer of cheese substituted for them.
10. An excellent preparation may be made with any well-flavoured, dry white cheese, which can be grated easily, at much less cost than with the Parmesan, which is expensive, and in the country not always procurable; the brown gravy and a seasoning of cayenne are great improvements to it.
11. Proportions: Maccaroni, 6 oz.; butter, 3 oz.; Parmesan (or other) cheese, 6 oz.; cream, 4 tablespoonsful.
12. Note: Less of butter and cheese can be used by the strict economist.