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Rabbit (rare-Bit), Scotch
Take as many slices as will be required of good Stilton, Gloucester, or Cheddar cheese, and if the cheese is not very rich add a little fresh butter or salad-oil. Grate the cheese, and put it into a cheese-toaster with a spoonful of made mustard, a pinch of cayenne, and a small glassful of good porter or ale. Stir the mixture until the cheese is dissolved, turn it out on a dish under which is a tin of boiling water, and serve very hot, with hot toast either dry or buttered. To prepare this dish properly, a cheese-toaster containing a reservoir for hot water should be used. When this is not at hand the cheese may be dissolved in a saucepan. Time, a few minutes.
A melted-cheese savoury of the simplest kind, with almost no quantities given. The whole dish turns on gentle heat: the cheese should be coaxed into a smooth cream, never allowed to bubble.
- The hinge: low, indirect heatOverheated cheese separates into a rubbery curd and a slick of oil. The "cheese-toaster with a reservoir for hot water" is simply a bain-marie; a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water does the same job, and the mixture should be pulled off the moment it is glossy and pourable.
- Working quantitiesThe recipe gives none. As a starting point for two servings, try 6 oz grated cheese, 1 teaspoon mustard, a pinch of cayenne, and 2 to 3 tablespoons of ale. A 'small glassful' is an imprecise measure, probably in the region of a wineglass (about 2 fl oz); add the ale a spoonful at a time, since cheeses vary in how much liquid they will take.
- Made mustardNot dry mustard powder. "Made" means mixed and ready to use, so an English mustard from the jar is the direct equivalent; the dry powder alone would be harsher and would not carry the same acidity.
- The cheesesThe recipe says only 'Gloucester'; Double rather than Single is the safer choice for a melting dish of this kind. All three named cheeses want to be well aged and dry rather than young and moist. Pre-grated supermarket cheese is coated in starch and will thicken the mixture oddly.
- Porter or alePorter gives a distinctly bitter, roasted note; a brown ale or mild is closer to the middle of the road. Avoid heavily hopped modern IPAs, which turn aggressively bitter as the liquid reduces against the cheese.
- Butter or salad-oil"Salad-oil" means olive oil, used here purely to enrich a lean cheese. A teaspoon of butter is the better choice for flavour; either way, only add it if the cheese is genuinely dry.
- ServingThe tin of boiling water under the dish is a warming tray, and it matters more than it sounds: the mixture stiffens within a minute of leaving the heat. Have the toast cut and waiting, pour over it or beside it, and eat at once.
- YieldThe recipe scales to the number of eaters ('as many slices as will be required'). At the quantities suggested above, a savoury course or light supper for two, with two slices of toast each.
Melted cheese on toast has been an English tavern dish since at least the eighteenth century, when it appears in print as "Welsh rabbit"; the name is traditionally explained as a joke, the cheese standing in for the game a poorer household could not put on the table, though that explanation is traditional rather than documented. "Rarebit" is a later respelling of the same word, and Cassell's title, "Rabbit (rare-Bit)", catches a moment when both forms were in circulation. The distinction between the Welsh, English and Scotch versions was never fixed; in a number of Victorian cookery books the Scotch is the one made with ale or porter and mustard, stirred to a cream rather than simply toasted under the fire. Purpose-built cheese-toasters with a hot-water reservoir were made in this period and could be brought to the table so the savoury was kept fluid in front of the company -- though the recipe itself allows for one not being at hand.