Hauptspeise (main course of the bourgeois table)
Makkaroni mit Parmesankäse, the Master's Pasta with Parmesan
FestiveDocumented🧂 🍄 🫙facile20 min
Long pasta coated with plenty of butter and generously grated Parmesan, melted together into a simple, rich, and savory dish. The comfort of a man who loved few things, but this one madly.
Why this dish? Macaroni with Parmesan was, by the admission of his contemporaries, Beethoven's favorite dish. He demanded it and jealously supervised it in the kitchen. It was HIS indulgence, the dish that brought him out of his usual frugality.
Parmesan! Lots and lots of Parmesan — and let the cook not skimp, or I'll know it! My macaroni, I want it melting under the butter and covered with cheese until you can no longer see the pasta. It's the only dish for which I leave my piano without grumbling, you see. Grate, my friend, grate again — a man who can no longer hear the orchestra has every right to hear his cheese melt.
Ingredients
- •Macaroni (long Italian pasta) — a generous handful per person (base of the dish)
- •Parmesan — in large quantity (umami and fermented signature)
- •Butter — generously (creamy binder)
- •Salt — to taste (seasoning)
- •Black pepper — a turn of the mill (spice)
How it was made : In the early 19th century, Italian pasta and Parmesan were already circulating in the good houses of Vienna, a cosmopolitan city of the Empire. They were served simply, with butter and cheese, long before elaborate sauces. It was a comfort dish as well as a small imported luxury.