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Welsh Rarebit II
1 tablespoon butter 1/2 lb. soft mild cheese, cut in small pieces 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon mustard Few grains cayenne 1/3 to 1/2 cup ale or lager beer 1 egg Put butter in chafing-dish, and when melted, add cheese and seasonings; as cheese melts, add ale gradually, while stirring constantly; then egg slightly beaten. Serve same as Welsh Rarebit I.
A classic chafing-dish rarebit, thinned with beer and bound with egg. The whole thing succeeds or fails on temperature control.
- Keep it below a simmerCheese held too hot breaks into oily strings and grit, and the egg will scramble. Work over the chafing-dish's water pan, or over a low burner in a heavy saucepan, and pull it off the heat the moment it is smooth.
- Add the egg off the heatBeat the egg lightly and stir it in with the pan away from the flame, then return it briefly. It thickens the mixture and gives the glossy body a rarebit should have; carried too far it curdles.
- "Soft mild cheese"In this period the phrase most likely pointed to a young, high-moisture cheddar or a mild American factory cheese rather than a rind-ripened soft cheese. A mild yellow cheddar or a Lancashire melts well; sharp aged cheddar is drier and more prone to separating.
- Grate rather than cubeThe original cuts the half pound in small pieces, which was fine over a slow chafing-dish. Coarsely grating shortens the time on heat considerably and reduces the risk of breaking.
- The beerA third to a half cup of a plain ale or lager. Avoid anything heavily hopped or high in alcohol; strong bitterness carries through the finished sauce.
- MustardA quarter teaspoon; dry mustard powder is the likeliest reading here. Prepared mustard adds vinegar and thins the sauce.
- ServingFollow Welsh Rarebit I, which in books of this type is poured over toast or toasted crackers; thick slices toasted dry keep it from going limp. Half a pound of cheese will stretch to a few light servings.
- TimingFrom melted butter to finished sauce is only a few minutes. It does not hold well, so make it when the toast is already cut.
Welsh rarebit appears in English cookery writing as "Welsh rabbit" from the early eighteenth century; the usual explanation -- that melted cheese on toast was as near to game as a poor Welsh household got -- is traditional rather than documented. "Rarebit" is a later genteel respelling, and the two names have been argued over ever since. By the time American domestic-science writers took it up around 1900 it had become chafing-dish food: a dish a hostess could cook at the table in front of guests, which is why cookbooks of the period so often give two or three versions, one with milk or cream and one, like this, with ale.