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Welsh
1 tablespoon butter 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon mustard 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce Salt and red pepper 1 pound American cheese 1/2 cup milk Chop the cheese into fine pieces and melt them in the butter. Stir constantly and gradually add the milk. Beat the egg; mix well with the seasoning and stir into the chafing dish. When the whole mixture is thoroughly heated pour it over toasted bread or crackers.
A chafing-dish rarebit, printed here among the fireless-cookery notes because it wants gentle, indirect heat rather than a burner turned up. The whole dish hinges on temperature control.
- Keep it below a simmerCheese sauces break when the protein tightens and squeezes out fat, and the beaten egg will scramble outright if the pan gets near boiling. Work over a water bath or the lowest possible flame and pull it off while it still flows.
- "American cheese"In a book of this period the phrase generally means domestic factory-made cheddar rather than the wrapped processed slice of later decades. Use a mild to medium yellow cheddar; a very sharp aged cheese has less moisture and separates more readily.
- Grate rather than chopCoarsely grated cheese melts faster and more evenly than chopped, which shortens the time the sauce spends over heat.
- Red pepperThis is cayenne, not paprika and not sweet pepper. A pinch is enough for a pound of cheese; it is there for warmth behind the mustard and Worcestershire.
- Temper the eggThe recipe says to beat the egg with the seasoning and stir it in, which risks lumps. Whisk a few spoonfuls of the hot cheese mixture into the egg first, then return the lot to the pan and stir until it thickens.
- MustardHalf a teaspoon most likely means dry mustard powder. If using prepared mustard instead, allow rather more — roughly three times the quantity — and add it at the end, since its vinegar can encourage the sauce to curdle.
- Yield and servingA pound of cheese makes enough for four to six as a supper dish. Serve the moment it is smooth, over toast that is dry and firm enough not to collapse; it stiffens badly on standing and reheats poorly.
Welsh rarebit — earlier and more bluntly "Welsh rabbit," recorded in English from the early eighteenth century, the name usually explained as a joke at the expense of the Welsh, though that explanation is traditional rather than documented — was a fixture of late-Victorian and Edwardian supper tables on both sides of the Atlantic. It was often made at the table in a chafing dish, over a spirit lamp or a pan of hot water, in keeping with the era's enthusiasm for cooking that did not require lighting the range. The addition of a whole egg, which appears in many American versions though not in the older English ones, gives the sauce body and helps keep it from separating, and the Worcestershire and cayenne reflect the common seasoning kit of the period.