Cheese Straws
INGREDIENTS for small dish. -2 oz. of butter, 2 oz. of flour, 2 oz. of bread-crumbs, 2 oz. of cheese, a little salt and cayenne. AVERAGE COST, 4d.
Grate the cheese, and mix the ingredients into a paste, seasoning with the cayenne CHEESE, TOASTED. and salt to taste. Roll out very thin, and cut into strips 1/4 inch wide, and 6 inches long ; CHEESE STRAWS. then twist several times and lay on a buttered tin to bake. They may be served either hot or cold.
TIME.-5 minutes to bake.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Cheese, Toasted, or Scotch Rare-bit. INGREDIENTS. A few slices of rich cheese, toast, mustard, and pepper.
AVERAGE COST, 1½d. per slice.
Cut some nice rich sound cheese into rather thin slices; melt it in a cheese-toaster on a hot plate or over steam, and, when melted, add a small quantity of mixed mustard and a seasoning of pepper; stir the cheese until it is completely dissolved, then brown it before the fire, or with a salamander. Fill the bottom of the cheese-toaster with hot water, and serve with dry or buttered toast, whichever may be preferred. Our engraving illustrates a cheese-toaster with hot-water reservoir; the cheese is HOT-WATER CHEESE "DISH. melted in the upper tin, which is placed in another vessel of boiling water, so keeping the preparation beautifully hot. A small quantity of porter or port wine is sometimes mixed with the cheese; and, if it be not very rich, a few pieces of butter may be mixed with it to great advantage. Some times the melted cheese is spread on the toast, and then laid in the cheese-dish at the top of the hot water. Whichever way it is served, it is highly necessary that the mixture be very hot, and very quickly sent to table, or it will be worthless. cheese.
TIME.-About 5 minutes to melt the SEASONABLE at any time.
Cheese, Toasted, or Welsh Rare-bit. INGREDIENTS. -Slices of bread, butter, Cheshire or Gloucester cheese, mustord, and pepper. AVERAGE COST. 1 d. per slice.
CHEROKEE.
Cut the bread into slices about-inch in thickness; pare off the crust, toast the bread slightly without hardening or burning it, and spread it with butter. Cut some slices, not quite so large as the bread, from a good rich fat cheese; lay them on the toasted bread in a cheese-toaster; be careful that the cheese does not burn, and let it be equally melted. Spread over the top a little made mustard and a seasoning of pepper, and serve very hot, with very hot plates. To facilitate the melting of the cheese, it may be cut into thin flakes, or toasted on one side before it is laid on the bread. As it is so essential to send this dish hot to table, it is a good plan to melt the cheese in small round silver or metal pans, and to send these pans to table, allowing one for each guest. Slices of dry or buttered toast should always accompany them, with mustard, pepper, and salt.
TIME. - About 5 minutes to melt the cheese.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Note. Should the cheese be dry, a little butter mixed with it will be an improvement.
Cheesecakes. INGREDIENTS for large dish of cheesecakes. -8 oz. of pressed curds, 2 oz. of ratafias, 6 oz. of sugar, 2 oz. of butter, the yolks of 6 eggs, nutmegs, salt, rind of 2 oranges or lemons, puff paste.
AVERAGE COST, 18. 9d.
Rub the sugar on the orange or lemon rind, and scrape it off. Press the curd in a napkin, to get rid of moisture; pound it thoroughly in a mortar, with the other ingredients, till the whole becomes a soft paste. Line 2 dozen, or more, tartlet-pans with good puff-paste, garnish these with the cheese-custard, place a strip of candiedpeel on the top of each, and bake, in a moderate oven, a light colour; when done, shake a little sifted sugar over them.
Currants, dried cherries, sultanas and citron may be used instead of candied-peel.
TIME.-20 minutes to bake.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A short, forgiving savoury: equal weights of butter, flour, breadcrumbs and cheese bound into a paste, twisted and baked. The only real difficulty is the baking time, which is optimistic as printed.
- The quantities2 oz each of butter, flour, breadcrumbs and cheese is about 55 g each, or roughly 1/2 cup flour, a cup of crumbs and 1/2 cup grated cheese. It makes a small dish, perhaps two dozen short straws.
- Choice of cheeseA dry, hard, well-flavoured cheese is essential; a mature Cheddar or Parmesan grates fine and does not weep fat. Anything soft or young will make the paste greasy and the straws limp.
- Binding the pasteWith no egg and no liquid listed, the paste comes together only from the warmth and moisture of the butter. Work it with the fingertips until it coheres, and add a teaspoon of cold water or an egg yolk if it refuses to hold when squeezed.
- BreadcrumbsThese should be fine, dry crumbs rather than fresh soft ones, or the strips will tear when rolled thin. Dry them in a low oven first if necessary.
- Rolling and cuttingRoll very thin, perhaps 3 mm, cut strips a quarter inch wide and six inches long, then twist each several times as directed and press the ends onto the tray so they hold their shape.
- Oven and timeNo temperature is given; a hot oven, around 400F (200C), suits the five-minute time. Five minutes is only enough for the very thinnest straws; check at five and expect seven to ten minutes for a pale gold colour. They burn quickly once they colour.
- CayenneThe recipe says only "a little": about 1/8 teaspoon for this quantity, with salt judged against the saltiness of the cheese.
- Handling and keepingLet them firm on the tin for a minute before lifting, as they are fragile hot. They keep several days in an airtight tin and crisp again in a warm oven.
Cheese straws belong to the English savoury course, the small hot or piquant dish served after the sweet and before dessert in Victorian and Edwardian dining, when a savoury was thought to settle the palate before the wine. Mrs Beeton's household books treat cheese as a course in its own right, with toasted cheese, ramekins and straws all clustered together, and the straw is essentially a thrifty one: it stretches a couple of ounces of cheese with flour and the breadcrumbs that any well-run kitchen produced in quantity. The average cost of fourpence given here is part of the book's characteristic accounting, which let a mistress of the house price a dish before ordering it. Twisted straws and the pastry ring they were often threaded through remained a fixture of British savoury cookery well into the twentieth century, and survive now mainly as a cocktail biscuit.