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Ramakins, Dutch
Grate two ounces of Cheshire cheese, and put it in a marble mortar with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, and a slice of fresh butter. One anchovy may be added if liked. Pound the mixture till quite smooth. Toast a large slice of bread, butter it, and spread the mixture thickly upon it. Cut it into small squares. Bake these in a Dutch oven, or brown them by holding a salamander over them for two or three minutes, and serve very hot, neatly arranged on a folded napkin.
A savoury of pounded cheese on toast, meant to close a dinner rather than open one. Two words in it mean something other than what a modern cook would assume.
- "Dutch oven" is not the potIn Victorian British usage a Dutch oven was usually a metal reflector or screen set on the hearth in front of an open fire, browning food by radiant heat from one side. The nearest modern equivalent is a grill or broiler, not a lidded cast-iron casserole.
- SalamanderA heavy iron plate on a long handle, heated in the fire and held close above a dish to glaze the surface. Any overhead broiler at high heat does the same job in about two or three minutes, which is the timing the original gives.
- Cheshire cheeseA crumbly, salty, mildly acidic cow's milk cheese. A firm farmhouse Cheshire or a young Lancashire grates and pounds best; mature Cheddar works but is sweeter and oilier and will run more under the heat.
- The mortarPounding rather than stirring is the point: it emulsifies the butter and egg yolk into the cheese so the mixture spreads rather than separates. A small food processor achieves the same paste in seconds, but let the butter soften first or the mixture will stay grainy.
- The anchovyOne salted anchovy fillet, or roughly half a teaspoon of anchovy paste, pounded in with the rest. It reads as savoury depth rather than fish. Season with pepper only, and taste before adding salt — the cheese and anchovy carry plenty.
- Quantities and yieldTwo ounces is about 55 g of grated cheese, and "a slice of fresh butter" is roughly half an ounce, 15 g. Spread on one large slice of toast this makes eight to twelve small squares — a savoury for two or three people, not a meal.
- Watch it under the heatThe squares need only to be bubbling and lightly coloured. Cheese held too long under a broiler tightens and weeps its fat, and the toast beneath goes from crisp to leathery.
"Ramakin" (also ramequin) came into English cookery from French in the eighteenth century, meaning a small hot cheese preparation, and only later transferred to the little glazed dish such preparations were baked in — which is why a Victorian ramakin can arrive on toast with no dish involved at all. This one belongs to the English savoury course, the small hot salty dish served after the sweet and before the dessert fruit, a fixture of dinner in gentlemen's clubs and middle-class dining rooms through the second half of the nineteenth century. The "Dutch" in the title most likely gestures at the reflector oven rather than the Netherlands. The folded napkin at the end is often said to have served a purpose beyond decoration, absorbing butter on the way from kitchen to table.