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Rabbit (rare-Bit), Welsh
Take a slice of bread about half an inch thick. Cut off the crust, toast it lightly, and butter it. Cut it in halves, and lay upon each half a slice of good Stilton or Cheshire cheese. Put the toasts in a cheese-toaster before a clear fire, and let them remain until the cheese is equally done. Serve the rabbit, or rare-bit, very hot, with pepper, salt, and made mustard. Some cooks toast the cheese partially in a Dutch oven, before laying it on the toast. Time to toast the cheese, a few minutes. The length of time varies with the quality of the cheese. (See also RARE-BIT, WELSH, and CHEESE, TOASTED.)
A minimal version of Welsh rarebit: no ale, no roux, no egg, just bread, cheese and heat. Everything depends on the cheese and on how it is melted.
- The hinge: gentle, even heatThe cheese should soften and slump rather than boil. Overheated cheese breaks, weeping fat and turning grainy, which is why the original insists on a clear fire and a cheese-toaster rather than direct flame.
- Cheese-toaster and Dutch ovenA cheese-toaster was a shallow metal dish, sometimes hot-water-jacketed, stood on the hearth to catch drips; a Dutch oven was an open-fronted tin reflector set before the coals. A grill or broiler on medium does the same work — keep the toast a few inches from the element.
- Choice of cheeseStilton here means the blue-veined cheese, which melts patchily and tastes sharp; Cheshire is a crumbly, slightly acid cow's-milk cheese. A firm farmhouse Cheshire or a mature Cheddar behaves best. Very young or very high-moisture cheese will run off the bread.
- Thickness mattersHalf an inch of bread, crustless, toasted only lightly, is right: heavily toasted bread dries out under a second heating, and thin slices go leathery. Butter the toast while warm so it absorbs rather than sits.
- "Made mustard"Mustard mixed to a paste with water or vinegar, as opposed to dry mustard powder. English mustard is the closest match and is meant to be served alongside, not stirred in.
- TimingA few minutes under a hot grill — three to five is usual. Watch it rather than time it; the cheese is done when it is glossy and just beginning to blister.
- YieldOne slice of bread, halved, serves one as a savoury course or light supper. Scale by the slice.
The name has been recorded since the early eighteenth century, and the "rarebit" spelling seen in this entry's title is a later, genteel alteration — an attempt to explain away a joke, since "Welsh rabbit" belongs to a family of mocking English names in which a poor man's substitute is given the name of the better thing, as "Scotch woodcock" is eggs and anchovy. Cassell's hedging between the two spellings, and the cross-references to RARE-BIT, WELSH and CHEESE, TOASTED, show a compiler unwilling to take sides in an argument that was already old. Melted cheese on toast was one of the standard English savouries, served at the close of dinner after the sweet course, and a cook was expected to manage it without splitting the cheese. The equipment named — the hearth-side cheese-toaster and the reflecting Dutch oven — belongs to a kitchen where cooking still happened in front of an open fire as often as inside a closed range.