Macaroni à la Nantua

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •5-quart pasta pot
• •3-quart heavy saucepan
• •Fine-mesh sieve
• •Large colander
• •Sharp paring knife
• •2-quart deep porcelain timbale or serving bowl

Instructions

1. 1

   Separate tails and shells

   Twist the tail from each crayfish, peel it carefully, and draw out the dark intestinal vein without breaking the meat. Reserve all eighteen tails under cover in the refrigerator. Keep the head, body, and tail shells together, then crack them lightly with the base of a small saucepan. You want fractured shells that will surrender their flavour, not a paste that will cloud the cream.

   Count the tails before you continue. Eighteen tails preserve the source entry's proportion of twenty-four crayfish per pound of macaroni.
2. 2

   Infuse the crayfish cream

   Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the cracked shells and cook for 4 minutes, turning and pressing them until the butter smells deeply of crayfish, but do not let the butter darken. Pour in the cream and bring only to a bare tremble. Partially cover and infuse over the gentlest heat for 15 minutes, stirring along the bottom twice so the cream cannot catch. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a measuring jug, pressing the shells lightly. Do not grind them through the mesh, which makes the cream muddy and bitter. Reserve 1/4 cup of the infused cream for adjusting the liaison.

3. 3

   Cut truffle, warm timbale

   Brush a fresh truffle clean, or drain and dry a whole-preserved one. Cut the truffle julienne-fashion, into fine match-shaped rods, keeping every trimming with the finished julienne. Fill a deep 2-quart porcelain timbale or serving bowl with hot water and leave it to warm while you finish the dish. A cold vessel seizes cream sauce before the first serving reaches the plate.

4. 4

   Reduce and finish cream

   Return the unreserved infused cream to the clean saucepan and simmer gently for 6 to 10 minutes, whisking often, until it is nappant, coating the back of a spoon in an even ivory layer. Take the pan from the heat and monter au beurre, whisk in the remaining cold tablespoon of butter, until the cream gleams. Season with a small pinch of salt. If beads of butter appear around the edge, stop heating and whisk in reserved infused cream one spoonful at a time until the sauce is smooth again. Ça se rattrape.

5. 5

   Cook, drain, dry macaroni

   Bring a large pot of water to a full boil, add the measured salt, and cook the macaroni until tender through but still holding its shape. Drain it thoroughly, shake the colander twice, and return the macaroni to the empty pot over low heat for 30 to 60 seconds, folding continuously until the surface looks matte and no water beads remain. Do not brown it. This drying is the step the source names plainly, and it must stay: wet macaroni dilutes the crayfish cream instead of taking hold of it.

6. 6

   Bind and warm tails

   Set the crayfish cream over low heat and add the dried macaroni. Fold steadily for 1 to 2 minutes, reaching across the bottom, until every tube is glossy and the cream clings rather than pooling beneath it. If the sauce still runs to the pan floor, keep folding over low heat; if it tightens into paste, loosen it with the reserved infused cream, a tablespoon at a time. Fold in all eighteen crayfish tails and warm them gently for about 2 minutes, just until hot at the centre. Do not boil them, or their sweetness turns to rubber.

7. 7

   Crown the timbale

   Empty and dry the warmed timbale. Spoon in the macaroni at once, bringing the crayfish tails visibly through the cream rather than burying them at the bottom. Cover the full surface with the truffle julienne, including every trimming, and carry the timbale straight to the table. The truffle opens against the warm cream while the sauce is still loose and gleaming. À table!

Chef Tips

• •Buy plain-cooked freshwater crayfish, never crayfish from a heavily seasoned boil. Frozen whole crayfish are an honest preserved choice when good fresh ones aren't available; thaw them in the refrigerator and dry them before peeling.
• •If your fishmonger sells only peeled tail meat, count eighteen intact tails and ask for about 6 ounces (170 g) of plain crayfish shells separately. Without the shells, you can make cream and macaroni, but you cannot make Nantua.
• •Use a whole very black truffle so it can be cut julienne-fashion. A whole-preserved truffle is preferable to a jar of paste or chopped peelings, which cannot give the dark matchsticks demanded by the source and often tastes more of its preserving liquid than truffle.
• •No cheese and no tomato. Neither appears in this entry, and either would flatten the clean progression from crayfish shell to cream, tail, and truffle.
• •Pour a dry Roussette du Bugey made from Altesse. Its freshness clears the cream, and its local place beside Nantua makes more sense than a heavy, perfumed wine.

Advance Preparation

• •The crayfish can be peeled up to one day ahead. Refrigerate the tails and shells separately in tightly covered containers, then infuse the cream on the day of serving.
• •The shell-infused cream can be strained several hours ahead and refrigerated. Reduce it only shortly before cooking the macaroni, because fully reduced cream thickens heavily when held.
• •Cut fresh truffle shortly before serving and keep it covered. Cook and bind the macaroni at the last moment; once joined, the pasta continues drinking the cream and will not wait graciously.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 350g)