Home › The Chafing-Dish › Welsh Rabbit
Welsh Rabbit
One pound of creamery cheese Two eggs One and one-half cups of milk One tablespoon of butter Two tablespoons of Larkin Corn Starch One-half teaspoon of Larkin Table Salt One teaspoon of Larkin Mustard One-half teaspoon of Larkin White Pepper One-eighth teaspoon of Larkin Cayenne Pepper Two teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce Put the cheese, butter and milk into the blazer. Stir while it is melting, being careful that the mixture does not boil, as it will curdle. Mix the Corn Starch, Salt, Pepper, Mustard, and moisten with a small portion of the milk. When the cheese is entirely melted stir in the Corn Starch. Add the Worcestershire, and finally stir in the beaten eggs. Stir until entirely blended.
A chafing-dish rabbit built for stability: cornstarch and egg keep a pound of melted cheese from breaking. The whole thing hangs on heat control.
- Never let it boilCheese sauces break above roughly 180F, and the egg added at the end will scramble outright at a simmer. Keep the blazer over hot water rather than direct flame if your chafing dish allows, or use a heavy saucepan over low heat.
- The blazerThe upper pan of a chafing dish, the one that sits directly over the flame; the water pan goes beneath it. A wide, heavy-bottomed saucepan or a double boiler stands in for it.
- Creamery cheesePeriod shorthand for factory-made American cheddar, mild and young rather than aged. A mild yellow cheddar or a mix of cheddar and American works; sharp aged cheddar has less moisture and is more likely to break.
- Larkin productsThe Larkin Company of Buffalo sold soap and groceries by mail, and this book existed to sell them. Read them as generic: table salt, dry mustard powder, white pepper, cayenne, cornstarch.
- MustardLarkin Mustard here is the dry powder, not prepared mustard from a jar. A teaspoon of dry English or Colman's-style mustard is the intent.
- Slurry orderThe instruction to moisten the cornstarch and seasonings with a little of the milk means holding back a few tablespoons from the cup and a half at the start. Adding dry starch to melted cheese gives lumps.
- The eggsBeat them first and temper with a ladle of the hot cheese before they go in, then stir constantly. Poured in cold and straight, they set in threads.
- Yield and servingA pound of cheese with a cup and a half of milk makes a generous amount, perhaps four to six servings over toast, though the recipe states no yield. Rabbit thickens fast as it cools, so serve it hot from the chafing dish, on dry toast rather than buttered.
Welsh rabbit is the older and more honest name; "rarebit" was a later genteel correction of what is generally said to have begun as an English joke at Welsh expense, the cheese standing in for the meat a poor man could not afford. The dish is documented in English cookery from the eighteenth century, and by the time this recipe was printed it had become the standard set piece of the American chafing-dish craze, a fashion for cooking at the table in the parlour or after the theatre that ran from the 1890s through the 1910s. The cornstarch and eggs here are insurance against curdling for a cook working over an open flame in front of guests. The Larkin Company of Buffalo distributed cookbooks like this one as premiums to buyers of its soap, which is why every seasoning in the list carries a brand name.