Take some flour and water, and with the addition of a little salt make a paste which can be rolled out quite thin; cut this into shapes of the breadth of half a finger. Throw them into boiling water and let them boil a few minutes. Then remove them to cold water; drain them on a sieve and use them as macaroni; place at the bottom of a dish some butter and grated cheese, then a layer of tagliatelli seasoned with pepper, another layer of butter and cheese, and then one of tagliatelli, until the whole is used; pour over it a glass of cream, add a layer of cheese, and finish like macaroni cheese, browning it in the oven.
4 oz. of macaroni, 2 pints of milk, butter, sugar, 2 eggs. Break the macaroni in small pieces and boil it for 20 minutes. Drain off all the water, pour in the milk, sugar, and a piece of butter. Boil until the macaroni is quite tender. Let it cool, then add the eggs well beaten up, and a little grated nutmeg. Put the pudding into a pie-dish and bake for 1/2 hour.
Prepare the macaroni with the cream sauce. Turn into a buttered escalop dish. Have half a cupful of grated cheese and half a cupful of bread crumbs mixed. Sprinkle over the macaroni, and place in the oven and brown. It will take about twenty minutes.
Boil 6 ozs. long pipe macaroni--in as long pieces as convenient--in salted boiling water 20 to 25 minutes, and drain. Have a plain mould--a small enamel pudding basin is best--butter it well, and line closely round it with the macaroni. Fill in with any savoury mixture, such as lentils, tomatoes, mushrooms, celery, carrots, &c. Put more strips of macaroni or a slice of buttered bread on the top. Cover with buttered paper and steam 1-1/2 hours. Turn out and serve with sauce. Garnish suitably, cooked tomatoes, &c.
The word nudel is probably derived from French nouilles paste. It is made in a similar manner, or nearly so. French cooks use only yolk of egg and flour. English cooks use beaten-up eggs, and sometimes even reserve the yolks for other purposes and make the paste with white of egg. In any case, the yolks, the whole eggs, or the white without the yolks, must be well beaten up and then mixed in with the flour with the fingers till it makes a stiff paste. This paste or dough is then rolled out with a straight rolling pin--(not an English one)--till it is as thin as a wafer. The board must be well floured or it will stick. A marble slab is best, and if you are at a loss for a rolling-pin try an empty black bottle. It is very important to roll the pastry thin, and it has been well observed that the best test of thinness is to be able to read a book through the paste. When rolled out, let each thin cake dry for five or ten minutes. If you have a box of cutters you can cut this paste into all sorts of shapes according to the shape of the cutters, or you can cut each thin cake into pieces about the same size, and then with a sharp dry knife cut the paste into threads. These threads or ornamental shapes can be thrown into boiling clear soup, when they will separate of their own accord. Nudel paste is, in fact, home-made Italian paste, or, when cut into threads, home-made vermicelli. It is very nourishing, as it is made with eggs and flour.
1-1/2 c. macaroni 3 qt. boiling water 3 tsp. salt 1/4 c. crumbs
CREAM SAUCE
2 Tb. butter 2 Tb. flour 1 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. pepper 1 1/2 c. milk
Break the macaroni into inch lengths, add it to the salted boiling water, and cook it until it is tender. To prepare the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, salt, and pepper, stir until smooth, and gradually add the milk, which must be hot, stirring rapidly so that no lumps form. Cook the cream sauce until it thickens and then add it to the macaroni. Pour all into a baking dish, sprinkle the bread or cracker crumbs over the top, dot with butter, and bake until the crumbs are brown. Serve hot.
Twelve sticks of macaroni (a quarter of a pound), half a pint of milk, two table-spoonfuls of cream, two of butter, one of flour, some salt, white pepper and cayenne, and a quarter of a pound of cheese. Break and wash the macaroni, and boil it rapidly for twenty minutes in two quarts of water. Put the milk on in the double boiler. Mix the butter and flour together, and stir into the boiling milk. Add the seasoning, cream and cheese. Drain, and dish the macaroni. Pour the sauce over it, and serve immediately. One table-spoonful of mustard can be stirred into the sauce if you like. If the sauce and macaroni are allowed to stand long after they are put together the dish will be spoiled. If they cannot be served immediately, keep both hot in separate dishes.
Sparghetti is a peculiar form of macaroni. Ordinary macaroni is made in the form of long tubes, and when macaroni pudding is served in schools, it is often irreverently nicknamed by the boys gas-pipes. Sparghetti is not a tube, but simply macaroni made in the shape of ordinary wax-tapers, which it resembles very much in appearance. In Italy it is often customary to commence dinner with a dish of sparghetti, and should the dinner consist as well of soup, fish, entree, salad, and sweet, the sparghetti would be served before the soup. Take, say, half a pound of sparghetti, wash it in cold water, and throw it instantly into boiling salted water; boil it till it is tender, about twenty minutes, drain it, put it into a hot vegetable-dish, and mix in two or three tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese; toss it about lightly with a couple of forks, till the cheese melts and forms what may be called cobwebs on tossing it about. Add also two tablespoonfuls of tomato conserve (sold by all grocers, in bottles), and serve immediately. This is very cheap, very satisfying, and very nourishing; and it is to be regretted that this popular dish is not more often used by those who are not vegetarians, who would benefit both in pocket and in health were they to lessen their butcher's bill by at any rate commencing dinner, like the Italians, with a dish of sparghetti.
Take half a pound of macaroni and throw it into boiling water that has been salted. In the meantime have ready four hard-boiled eggs. When the macaroni is nearly tender throw the hard-boiled eggs into cold water for a minute, in order to enable you to take off the shells without burning your fingers. Cut the eggs in half, take out the half yellow yolk without breaking it; cut the whites of the eggs into rings and mix these rings with the macaroni on the dish. The macaroni and eggs must be flavoured with pepper and salt, and if possible pour a little white sauce over the whole. If you have no white sauce add a little cream or a little thickened milk with a little butter dissolved in it; now sprinkle a little chopped blanched parsley over the whole and ornament the dish with the eight half-yolks.
