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Cheese Custard
Melt two tablespoons butter; add one teaspoon each of salt, mustard and paprika. Add two cups cheese, one half cup soft bread crumbs, and one cup milk. Cook five minutes. Add two eggs well beaten; when thoroughly blended, pour on to bread toasted on one side.
A chafing-dish cheese sauce in the Welsh rabbit family, thickened with egg rather than flour. The whole thing hinges on keeping the heat low once the eggs go in.
- The chafing dishThis is a chafing-dish style preparation, cooked gently in a shallow pan, though the instructions themselves specify no equipment. Use a double boiler or a heavy saucepan over the lowest possible heat; direct high heat will scramble the eggs and squeeze the fat out of the cheese.
- Two cups cheeseMeans grated or finely cut cheese, roughly 6 to 8 oz. A sharp Cheddar or a Cheddar-and-Gruyere mix melts smoothly; pre-shredded cheese coated in anti-caking starch does not.
- MustardDry mustard powder, not prepared mustard from a jar. A full teaspoon is assertive but correct for the style.
- SaltA teaspoon of salt with 8 oz of aged cheese will read as very salty to modern palates. Start with a quarter teaspoon and adjust after the cheese has melted.
- Cook five minutesThat is for the cheese, crumbs and milk to come together into a smooth sauce. Stir throughout; the mixture should be hot and thick but never bubbling.
- Adding the eggsTake the pan off the heat, stir a ladle of the hot cheese mixture into the beaten eggs, then return everything to low heat and stir until it thickens to a soft custard, about two to three minutes. Dumping cold eggs straight into hot cheese is how this dish curdles.
- Toasted on one sideThe recipe specifies bread toasted on one side only. The usual reading is that the untoasted side takes the sauce while the toasted underside keeps the slice from collapsing; the instruction appears in other recipes of the period, so it is unlikely to be a misprint.
- YieldServes four as a light supper or savoury, two if it is the whole meal.
Lowney's, like many American cookbooks of the 1900s and 1910s, gave the chafing dish its own chapter because the apparatus had become a fixture of late-evening entertaining -- students, bachelors and hostesses could cook at the table without a servant or a range. The repertoire was narrow and cheesy by necessity: anything that could be managed in one shallow pan over an alcohol flame. This custard is a cousin of Welsh rabbit; the American chafing-dish versions multiplied into dozens of near-identical formulas differing mainly in whether they were bound with flour, beer, egg, or nothing at all. The bread crumbs and beaten eggs here do the work of a roux, and the paprika supplies colour that melted cheese otherwise lacks. Lowney's was published by a chocolate company, which explains why a book best known for cocoa and confectionery also carries a full chapter of savoury table-side cookery.