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Ramekins (to serve with the Cheese Course)
INGREDIENTS for 9 or 10 tins.- 1/4 lb. of Cheshire cheese, lb. of Parmesan cheese, 1/4 lb. of fresh butter, 4 eggs, the crumb of a small roll; pepper, salt and pounded mace to taste. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 4d.
Boil the crumb of the roll in milk for 5 minutes; strain and put it into a mortar; add the cheese, which should be finely scraped, the butter, the yolks of the eggs and seasoning, and pound these ingredients well together. Whisk the whites of the eggs, mix them with the paste, and put it into small tins or cases, which should not be more than half filled. Bake them from 10 to 12 minutes, and serve them very hot and very quickly. This batter answers equally well for macaroni after it is boiled tender.
TIME.-10 or 12 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Ramekins, Pastry (to serve with the Cheese Course). - INGREDIENTS. Any pieces of very good light puff-paste, Cheshire, Parmesan or Stilton cheese.
The remains or odd pieces of paste left from large tarts, &c., answer for making these little dishes. Gather up the pieces of paste, roll it out evenly, and sprinkle it with grated cheese of a nice flavour. Fold the paste in three, roll it out again, and sprinkle more cheese over; fold the paste, roll it out, and with a paste-cutter shape it in any way that may be desired. Bake the ramekins in a brisk oven from 10 to 15 minutes, dish them on a hot napkin, and serve quickly. The appearance of this dish may be very much improved by brushing the ramekins over with the yolk of egg before they are placed in the oven.
TIME.-10 to 15 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Two related savouries: a baked cheese custard in small tins, and cheese-layered puff pastry cut into shapes. The text has come down to us with its opening line and several fractions lost, so a little judgement is needed before you start.
- Parmesan quantityThe Cheshire cheese reads a quarter of a pound, matching the printed page. The Parmesan is still given only as "lb." with no fraction; a quarter of a pound, as for the Cheshire, gives a good balance.
- What a ramekin wasIn Victorian usage ramekin meant the cheese preparation itself, not the dish it sat in. The "small tins or cases" are patty tins or small paper cases; modern ceramic ramekins of 4-5 fl oz work, well buttered.
- Oven heatThe book gives no oven heat for the custard version; a moderate to fairly hot oven, in the region of 375-400F, suits the 10-12 minutes stated. "Brisk oven" for the pastry ramekins is conventionally read as around 425F, hot enough that the layers lift before the cheese scorches.
- The crumb of a small rollAbout 1 to 1 1/2 oz of soft white bread, torn from inside a dinner roll with the crust discarded. Simmer it in just enough milk to cover, then squeeze it dry; a wet panade will make the mixture slump in the tin.
- Mortar or processorThe pounding is to get a smooth paste of cheese, butter and yolks. A food processor does it in seconds, but let the mixture come back to cool room temperature before folding in the whisked whites, or they will collapse against warm butter.
- Half fill onlyThis is the instruction that matters. The whites make the mixture rise like a small souffle and it will climb over the rim if the tins are fuller than half. It also means the ramekins sink within a minute or two of leaving the oven — hence "serve them very hot and very quickly."
- Cheshire cheeseA firm, crumbly, slightly salty cow's-milk cheese; a young Lancashire or a mild white Cheddar behaves much the same in the mixture. Season with pepper and mace first and taste before adding salt, since Cheshire and Parmesan together are already salty.
- YieldThe full quantity fills 9 or 10 small tins, enough for a cheese course for eight or nine. The pastry version depends entirely on your trimmings; reckon 10-15 minutes' baking whatever the size, and watch rather than time small shapes.
- The macaroni note"This batter answers equally well for macaroni after it is boiled tender" means the cheese paste can be stirred through cooked macaroni and baked — a rich version of baked macaroni cheese, made with yolks and lightened with whites.
Cheese ramekins belong to the Victorian savoury, the small hot dish served after the sweet at a formal dinner or alongside the cheese at the end. The word comes to English through French ramequin, itself generally traced to a Germanic or Flemish word for toasted cheese, and in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cookbooks it names the cheese mixture rather than the pot. The second recipe here is very much a household economy: it exists to use up the puff-paste trimmings from a day's tart-making, rolled with grated cheese in the same fold-and-turn motion used to laminate the pastry in the first place. That combination of a rich composed dish and a frugal one made from scraps, priced to the penny, is characteristic of the Beeton tradition, which assumed a cook working to a budget and a mistress checking the accounts.