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English Monkey
1 cup bread-crumbs 1 cup milk 1 tablespoon fat 1/2 cup mild American cheese 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper Toast Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk until they are soft. Melt the fat in the blazer. Add the cheese cut in dice. When the cheese has melted, add the softened crumbs, the egg beaten, and salt and pepper. Cook three minutes longer and pour over squares of toast.
A chafing-dish supper dish, quick enough that the whole thing can be done in front of guests. The only real difficulty is heat control: this is a cheese-and-egg sauce, and it curdles if pushed.
- Low, steady heatKeep the blazer over a gentle flame and stir constantly once the egg goes in. Cheese sauces bound with egg break into grainy curds and weeping fat at a simmer; the mixture should thicken but never bubble.
- Blazer or saucepanIf you are not cooking at table, use a heavy saucepan over low heat, or set a bowl over barely simmering water for a wider margin of safety.
- Bread-crumbsSoaking 'until they are soft' suggests soft crumbs rather than dry packaged ones. Dry crumbs will drink the milk less evenly; if that is all you have, use rather less than a cup and let it stand longer.
- Mild American cheeseIn this period the term generally meant a young, mild domestic cheddar rather than a processed slice. A mild yellow cheddar or a Colby is close in melting texture. Dicing it, as directed, helps it melt quickly and evenly in the fat before the crumbs go in.
- The fatThe recipe says only 'fat'; butter suits the dish, and a tablespoon is roughly half an ounce. Bacon fat is not out of keeping and adds some savour.
- Beating the eggBeat it thoroughly before adding, and it helps to stir a spoonful of the hot mixture into the egg first, then return it all to the pan. Dropped in cold, the egg sets in threads.
- TimingThree minutes is enough once the egg is in. Longer and the crumbs swell, the sauce stiffens, and it will not pour cleanly over toast.
- YieldNo yield is given; the quantities suggest a small dish for two or three over several squares of toast. Taste at the end -- cheddar varies enough in salt that the half teaspoon may be too much.
English Monkey belongs to the family of hot cheese suppers that includes Welsh rabbit and golden buck -- melted cheese poured over toast under a joke name that promises meat and delivers cheese. (Scotch woodcock, often listed alongside them, is anchovy toast with egg rather than a cheese dish.) The addition of soaked bread-crumbs and a beaten egg is the frugal part: it stretches a half cup of cheese further and gives the sauce enough body to sit on toast without soaking straight through. Its place in a chapter on cooking at the table reflects the vogue for the chafing dish in American homes, which was widely kept for late suppers, club rooms and college lodgings -- anywhere a hot dish was wanted without a kitchen. The blazer sat directly over the flame and could bring a small quantity of food to temperature in a few minutes, which is the scale this recipe is written for.