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Cheese, with Eggs
Place in a fireproof dish a piece of butter, a little salad oil, and some slices of good rich cheese. Put in the oven, and when the cheese is melted, break two or three whole eggs into it, and return to the oven. When the whites set, sprinkle grated cheese and pepper on them, and serve as hot as possible in the same dish in which they have been cooked. Probable cost, 6d. or 8d.
A one-dish supper of eggs baked in melted cheese, closer to French œufs sur le plat than to Welsh rarebit. The whole thing takes under fifteen minutes, and the only thing that can go wrong is overcooking.
- The hinge: pull it earlyCheese and egg both tighten fast, and the dish carries on cooking after it leaves the oven because it is served in the same hot vessel. Take it out when the whites are just barely set and still slightly wobbly at the edge of the yolk.
- Oven heatCassell's gives no temperature, and no oven description of any kind; it says only 'put in the oven'. A moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable modern setting for both stages. Much hotter and the cheese is liable to separate into oil and curd before the whites set.
- "Fireproof dish"An earthenware or cast-iron gratin dish, shallow and small enough that two or three eggs fill it. A modern individual cast-iron skillet or a small oval baking dish does the same job, and both go to the table hot.
- "Salad oil"In late Victorian British usage this usually meant olive oil, the oil kept for dressing salads. A teaspoon alongside the butter helps keep the melted cheese from tightening; any decent olive oil works.
- "Good rich cheese"A firm, well-flavoured melting cheese: farmhouse Cheddar, Cheshire, Gruyère or a mix. Avoid anything pre-shredded, as the anti-caking starch makes a grainy base.
- SeasoningOnly pepper is called for, on the assumption that the cheese brings the salt. Taste the cheese first and salt the base sparingly if it is mild.
- Yield and costTwo or three eggs makes one substantial serving or two light ones. The "6d. or 8d." is sixpence or eightpence, an inexpensive supper by the standards of the book's other costings.
The dish belongs to a family of baked-egg suppers that ran through late Victorian and Edwardian British cooking: eggs cooked and served in the same small fireproof dish, needing no sauce, no garnish and no second pan. The technique is essentially the French œufs sur le plat, adapted to the British enthusiasm for melted cheese that also produced Welsh rarebit and buck rarebit. A probable cost in pence is given for nearly every recipe in the dictionary, and a dish at sixpence marked this as everyday food rather than company fare.