Culinary jottings

The association of tomatoes with maccaroni seems to be as happy as that of green peas with a duckling, egg sauce with saltfish, or red currant jelly with a well hung saddle. These vegetables are generally applied in the form of puree, to achieve which you must cut them into quarters, trim them from stalk, &c., and put them into a sauce-pan with an ounce of butter, and one onion sliced in rings, a few pepper corns, three cloves of garlic, a tea-spoonful of dried basil, and a little salt ; boil till the quarters are quite soft, and then turn the contents of the sauce-pan out upon a hair sieve. Let the watery part escape, you do not want it, and when thus drained, pick out the garlic, and pepper corns, and rub the vegetable through the sieve with a wooden spoon : the pulp that comes through, — well peppered with black pepper, — must be heated again with a lump of butter and a little flour before it is mixed with the maccaroni. Maccaroni with ^"conserva di pomi d'oro" is an Italian delicacy. The conserva is, as may readily be supposed, a regular jam made by reducing a good quantity of the puree aforesaid in a sauce-pan over the fire, stirring it without ceasing until it attains the consistency of thin paste. This well seasoned with salt and pepper may be preserved in bottles, and if securely corked, and waxed, will keep well. During their season, tomatoes absolutely rot in the ground in many a private garden in this Presidency : why permit such waste ? the trouble of making a few bottles of this conserve would be amply repaid in the hot weather when the plants have died down. A spoonful or two of the preserve, thinned with a very little stock, and with a pat of butter worked into it, would, at all times, be handy for dressing maccaroni. A dusting of finely grated cheese should, of course, accompany it. Here is a ' foreign composition' w^hich I commend to the attention of those who like Italian cookery : — Mince a couple of cloves of garlic, a shallot, three anchovies, boned and well wiped from the tin oil, and four olives, put the mince into a small sauce-pan with three tablespoonfuls of the best salad oil, boil till the bits of garlic and onion begin to brown, and then turn the mixture into a sauce-pan containing a large dish of hot-boiled maccaroni, stir it well, and serve. An Italian cook would probably put in half a dozen, or more, cloves of garlic : in the proportions I have given, however, I do not think the taste of the bulb will be considered more pronounced than it is in chutneys, and numerous dishes made in India which we eat without murmuring. Several dishes will be found in my menus in which maccaroni figures, for I have the highest opinion of its merits in savoury cookery. The rules I have given will, I think, be found reliable with respect to all kinds of Italian paste, Lasagne, Cannelli, Mostaccioli, &c.; and I sincerely hope that what I have said may be the means of drawing my readers' attention to a comestible which deserves far greater consideration than Englishmen, as a rule, bestow upon it. An inexpensive article of food which, with a little study, may be made a luxury, is surely a thing that the banished lover of good things can ill afford to despise.