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Cheese Straws
Mix two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, two ounces of fresh butter, two ounces of flour, an ounce of Cheddar cheese, and the yolk of an egg into a stiff paste. Flavour the mixture with cayenne, salt, and a very little pounded mace. Roll this out rather thinly, cut it into fingers about four inches long and half an inch wide, bake them for a few minutes in a quick oven, and serve cold. They should be piled on a dish in transverse rows. Probable cost, 5d. Sufficient for six persons.
A short, dense cheese pastry that works exactly as written, provided the dough is kept cold and the oven is genuinely hot.
- Oven temperatureA "quick oven" is usually read as somewhere around 400-450F (200-230C); the book gives no figure. Straws this thin colour in roughly 7-10 minutes; pull them when the edges are golden brown, as scorched Parmesan tastes acrid.
- Weights, not cupsThe recipe is a straight equal-weight formula: 2 oz (55 g) each of grated Parmesan, butter and flour, plus 1 oz (28 g) Cheddar. Use a scale rather than volume measures, since grated cheese packs unpredictably.
- The hinge: keep it coldButter, cheese and yolk with no liquid makes a short, greasy paste that softens fast under the hands. Bring it together quickly, chill it for 20-30 minutes before rolling, and chill the cut strips again on the tray if the kitchen is warm.
- Fresh butter"Fresh butter" meant unsalted, as opposed to the salted butter kept for storage. Use unsalted and season with salt to taste, since Parmesan is already salty.
- Pounded maceMace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed; ground mace from a jar is the modern equivalent, and a pinch is plenty. Ground nutmeg substitutes at slightly less.
- Rolling and cuttingRoll to about 1/8 inch (3 mm). A pastry wheel or pizza cutter gives cleaner fingers than a knife.
- CayenneThe recipe gives no quantity; 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon for this amount of paste gives warmth rather than heat.
- Yield and keepingYield depends on how thinly the paste is rolled; cut to the stated 4 in by 1/2 in it will run to several dozen. The original calls it "sufficient for six persons" as a savoury course. They keep three or four days in an airtight tin and crisp up again in a low oven.
Cheese straws belong to the British savoury, the small salted course served after the sweet and before dessert fruit in Victorian and Edwardian dinners, and often taken with a glass of port. An equal-weight paste of fat, flour and cheese demonstrates shortness without any of the layering of puff pastry. The costing of 5d. is characteristic of Cassell's, which gives a probable cost for its dishes so a household could budget a menu in advance; Parmesan was an established import in British kitchens by then, valued because it grated dry and kept well, while Cheddar supplied the flavour a hard grating cheese lacks. This recipe directs that they be served cold and piled in crossed rows.