A very pretty dish can be made by making a border of mashed potatoes, hollow in the centre, in which can be placed various kinds of other vegetables, such as haricot beans, stewed peas, &c. The mashed potato should be mixed with one or two well-beaten-up eggs, and the outside of the border can be moulded by hand, to make it look smooth and neat; a piece of flexible tin, flat, will be found very useful, or even a piece of cardboard. If you wish to make the border ornamental, you can proceed exactly as directed under the heading Rice Borders, and if it is wished to make the dish particularly handsome, it can be painted outside, before being placed in the oven, with a yolk of egg beaten up with a tiny drop of hot water. When this is done, the potato border has an appearance similar in colour to the rich pastry generally seen outside a pie, or vol au vent. The inside of the potato border after it has been scooped out can be filled with plain boiled macaroni mixed with Parmesan cheese, and ornamented with a little chopped parsley on the top and a few small baked red ripe tomatoes. Again, it can be filled with white haricot beans piled up in the shape of a dome, with some chopped parsley sprinkled over the top. There are, perhaps, few dishes in vegetarian cookery that can be made to look more elegant.
Take a small piece of ham fat, one-half of onion, piece of celery, parsley, small piece of carrot. Chop up fine together. Put into a saucepan, and when the vegetables are fried add two or three mushrooms which have been chopped fine; after five minutes add two tablespoons of tomato paste, thinned with five tablespoons of hot water (or equal quantity of tomato sauce without water). When the sauce is cooked take out the mushrooms and put them on one side.
Take one-half pound of macaroni. Boil in salted water for fifteen minutes, drain, and add the sauce described above. Add two tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated, and one tablespoon of butter.
Butter well a mold, then cover with a thin layer of bread crumbs the bottom and sides. Pour into the mold one-half the macaroni, then place on it a layer of mushrooms which you have taken out of the sauce. Now add the other half of the macaroni, and then another thin layer of bread crumbs. Put the mold into the oven without turning it over, and bake in a slow oven until well browned. Then turn out and serve.
To this timbale, if desired for variety, cold meat of any kind cut up fine may be added to the sauce; and one egg, hard boiled, and cut into four pieces. Add the egg, and the pieces of meat which you have removed from the sauce, to the timbale at the same time that you add the mushrooms.
Boil a chicken until very tender, take out all the bones, and pick up the meat quite fine. Boil half a pound of macaroni until tender, first breaking it up to pieces an inch long. Butter a deep pudding dish, put on the bottom a layer of the cooked macaroni, then a layer of the minced chicken, bits of butter, pepper and salt, then some of the chicken liquor, over this put another layer of macaroni, and so on, until, the dish is filled. Pour a cup of cream over the whole, and bake half an hour. Serve on a platter.
Take one-half pound of beef without fat. Prepare the ham fat as in the preceding receipt, chopped up with onion, celery, and parsley. Cut the meat into several pieces, put it with the fat, etc., into a frying-pan. Add salt and pepper. Cook until the meat is colored, then add two tablespoons of wine, white or red. When the wine is absorbed add two tablespoons of tomato paste dissolved in hot water. (Or tomato sauce as in preceding.) Boil all together for five minutes, with cover on the saucepan, then add one cup of boiling water, and allow it to simmer until the meat is thoroughly cooked--about one-half an hour. Boil and strain the macaroni as before, and pour over it the sauce from the meat. Mix well, and serve with the meat in the middle and the macaroni around it, with cheese (grated Parmesan) sprinkled over it.
This dish can be made with veal or mutton instead of the beef.
Break up a pound of macaroni in three-inch lengths, boil as usual and drain. Put into a stew-pan a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, the macaroni, twelve ounces of Parmesan and Gruyere cheese mixed, and about a quarter of a pint of some good sauce, white sauce. Move the stew-pan and its contents over the fire until the macaroni has absorbed the butter, etc., then turn it out on a dish, which should be garnished with croutons of fried bread. Pile it in the shape of a dome, cover with bread-raspings, a little clarified butter run through a colander, and brown very lightly with a salamander. N.B.--The above two recipes are taken from "Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery."
Boil 2 ozs. short cut macaroni in salted boiling water, and drain. Put 3 dessertspoonfuls flour in a basin, smooth with a little cold milk, and pour a breakfast-cupful boiling milk over it, stirring vigorously all the time. Add one or two spoonfuls of cream--or a little fresh dairy butter or nut butter beat to a cream--2 beaten eggs, teaspoonful minced parsley, same of grated onion, the macaroni, a large cup bread crumbs, seasoning of pepper, salt, &c. Mix very well. Put in buttered pie-dish and bake 30 to 40 minutes in brisk oven. Turn out and serve with brown or tomato sauce. Some grated cheese may be added if liked.
1 c. macaroni 2 qt. boiling water 2 tsp. salt 2 c. canned tomatoes 8 thin slices bacon
Break the macaroni into inch lengths and cook it in the boiling salted water until it is tender. Place a layer of the cooked macaroni on the bottom of a baking dish; over this layer put 1 cupful of the tomatoes, and on top of them spread four slices of bacon. Then add another layer of the macaroni, the other cupful of tomatoes, and a third layer of macaroni. On top of this layer, place the remaining four slices of bacon, and then bake the food for one half hour in a slow oven. Serve hot.
One large fowl, about four and a half or five pounds, boiled tender; half a box of gelatine, one cupful of broth in which the chicken was boiled, one cupful of cream, salt, pepper, fourteen ounces of macaroni. Just cover the fowl with boiling water, and simmer until very tender, the time depending upon the age, but being from one to two hours if the bird is not more than a year old. Take off all the skin and fat, and cut the meat in thin, delicate pieces. Soak the gelatine two hours in half a cupful of cold water, and dissolve it in the cupful of boiling broth; add to the cream, and season highly. Have the chicken well seasoned, also. Put the macaroni in a large flat pan with boiling water to cover, and boil rapidly for three minutes. Drain off the water, and place the macaroni on a board, having about twelve pieces in a bunch. Cut in pieces about three-fourths of an inch long. Butter a two-quart mould (an oval charlotte russe mould is the best) very thickly, and stick the macaroni closely over the bottom and sides. When done, put the chicken in lightly and evenly, and add the sauce very gradually. Steam one hour. Serve either cold or hot. Great care must be taken in dishing. Place the platter over the mould and turn platter and mould simultaneously. Let the dish rest a minute, and then gently remove the mould. Serve immediately. A long time is needed to line the mould with the macaroni, but this is such a handsome, savory dish as to pay to have it occasionally. If you prefer, you can use all broth, and omit the cream.
4 oz. of boiled macaroni, 4 oz. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 3 eggs, 3/4 pint of milk, 1 finely chopped onion, the grated rind of 1 lemon, 2 oz. of grated cheese, 1 tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley, 1 oz. of butter, 1/2 a saltspoonful of grated nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. Cut the macaroni in small pieces. Make a batter of the milk, eggs, and meal, mix into it all the other ingredients, pour it into a buttered pie-dish, cut up the butter in pieces and spread them on the top. Bake the savoury for 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
This is a somewhat expensive dish. You have first to decorate a plain mould with what is called nouilles paste, which is made by mixing half a pound of flour with five yolks of eggs. The mould is then lined with ordinary short paste, made with half a pound of flour, a quarter of a pound of butter, and one yolk of egg, mixed in the ordinary way. When the mould is lined, you have to fill it up with flour, and bake it in a moderate oven for about an hour. You then take it out, empty out the flour and brush it well out with an ordinary brush and dry the mould in a very slack oven. The mould is then filled with some macaroni that has been boiled tender in milk and flavoured with vanilla and sugar and Parmesan cheese. The macaroni must be so managed that it absorbs the moisture. The mould is filled, made hot, and then turned out. It is customary to shake some powdered sugar over the mould, and then glaze it with a red-hot salamander. N.B.--Very few kitchens possess a proper salamander, but if you make the kitchen shovel red-hot it will be found to answer the same purpose.
