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English Monkey
1 cup stale bread crumbs 1 cup milk 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 cup soft mild cheese, cut in small pieces 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Soak bread crumbs fifteen minutes in milk. Melt butter, add cheese, and when cheese has melted, add soaked crumbs, egg slightly beaten, and seasonings. Cook three minutes, and pour over toasted crackers which have been spread sparingly with butter.
A close cousin of Welsh rabbit, thickened with soaked bread crumbs and bound with egg. The whole thing takes about twenty minutes, most of it soaking time.
- The hinge: keep it below a simmerOnce the egg goes in, the mixture must not boil or it will scramble into curds and weep whey. Low heat, constant stirring, and pull it off as soon as it thickens and coats the spoon.
- "Soft mild cheese"This means a young, fresh-tasting cheese that melts smoothly — mild cheddar, Colby, Monterey Jack or a young Lancashire. Avoid aged cheddar and pre-shredded bags, which contain anti-caking starch and turn grainy. Grating rather than cutting in pieces speeds the melt.
- Stale bread crumbsSoft crumbs torn or rubbed from day-old bread, not the dry sandy crumbs sold in canisters. Dried commercial crumbs will drink the milk and go pasty; if that is all you have, use rather less than the cup called for.
- SoakingFifteen minutes is enough for the crumbs to swell and break down. Stir once or twice so no dry pockets remain, and add the milk and crumbs together to the melted cheese rather than pouring milk in separately.
- Temper the eggThe original adds the beaten egg straight to the pan. It is safer to stir two or three spoonfuls of the hot cheese mixture into the egg first, then return it all to the pan.
- Cooking timeThree minutes is all the original allows, and it is enough — this is closer to a custard than to a sauce to be reduced. Longer and it stiffens and can turn oily as the cheese breaks.
- Toasted crackersPlain water crackers or saltines, toasted dry until crisp, then buttered thinly. Sourdough or plain white toast works equally well.
- YieldNo yield is given; the quantities suggest two or three as a light supper. It sets quickly as it cools, so plate and serve immediately.
The name is unexplained, though it is often read alongside Welsh rabbit, where cheese stands in for meat; English monkey, Welsh rabbit and Scotch woodcock all belong to the same family of cheese-and-egg savouries served on toast, a group already well established before this period. The bread crumbs stretch half a cup of cheese and use up stale bread, which cookbooks of this era treated as a resource rather than a waste product.