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English Monkey
INGREDIENTS.
1 cup of fine bread crumbs from the centre of a stale loaf.
1 tablespoonful of butter. ¾ to I whole cup of cheese.
Method. - Melt the butter, add the cheese, and stir while melting; then add the bread crumbs, which have been soaked in the milk and the egg lightly beaten.
A Welsh rabbit built on a base of soaked crumbs and egg, which makes it softer and more forgiving than the straight cheese version. The ingredient list has come through with gaps, so read it against the method before starting.
- The missing milkThe method soaks the crumbs in milk, but no quantity survives in the ingredient list. Contemporary versions of this dish use about half a cup to one cup of milk for one cup of crumbs; start with half a cup, enough to wet the crumbs thoroughly without leaving them swimming.
- Unlisted ingredientsThe cheese quantity was checked against the printed page and reads three-quarters to one whole cup, as given here. The egg and the milk appear only in the method, with no quantity attached; one egg and a few tablespoons of milk, enough to soak the crumbs, will do.
- The hinge is the eggThe egg goes in raw with the soaked crumbs and must set gently. Cook over hot water, or in a heavy saucepan on low heat, and stir constantly. Direct high heat will scramble the egg and squeeze the fat out of the cheese into a grainy pool.
- Cheese to useRecipes of this period generally call for a mild, soft young cheese. Grate or cut it fine so it melts before the egg has time to overcook. Aged cheddar and pre-shredded cheese with anti-caking starch are both more likely to break.
- SeasoningThe recipe gives none. Other printed versions of the dish add salt and a little cayenne; dry mustard, paprika, or a dash of Worcestershire are common in this family of dishes.
- Crumbs"From the centre of a stale loaf" means soft crumbs with no crust, from bread a day or two old. Fresh bread turns to paste when soaked and crust gives dark specks.
- Serving and yieldNo yield is given; the quantities suggest two or three servings as a savoury course, spooned over hot buttered toast or crackers. It stiffens as it cools, so serve it straight from the pan.
"English Monkey" is one of a family of joking names for melted-cheese dishes, all descended from Welsh rabbit — an eighteenth-century English slur that made cheese on toast the Welshman's substitute for meat — though that gloss is the traditional explanation rather than documented fact. The version with soaked bread crumbs and egg appears in American cookbooks of the 1890s, notably Fannie Merritt Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book of 1896, and the crumbs are doing frugal work: they stretch a small amount of cheese and, with the egg, help hold the emulsion together. The chafing dish was at the height of its fashion around 1900, when late-evening suppers cooked in the parlour or the college room were a mild social novelty, and cheese dishes — quick, cheap, and needing no oven — were its staple repertoire.