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Mexican Rabbit
½ tablespoon butter
¼ teaspoon salt
½ green pepper
½ cup canned tomatoes
2 cups grated cheese
½ cup bread-crums
1 egg
6 slices buttered toast
1 cup canned corn
Melt the butter in the top of the double boiler, add the chopped pepper and cook until slightly softened, but not browned. Set over hot water, add the cheese and stir constantly until the cheese is melted. Mix beaten egg, salt and corn and stir into the cheese mixture; add the chopped tomatoes and crums. Heat the mixture and serve on toasted bread.
A cheese rarebit stretched with corn and tomato, cooked in a double boiler. The whole dish hinges on gentle heat: keep it over hot, not boiling, water or the cheese breaks and the egg curdles.
- "Rabbit" means rarebitNo rabbit is involved. The word is the older spelling of the Welsh rarebit family of melted-cheese-on-toast dishes; "Mexican" here simply signals the green pepper and tomato.
- Never let it boilSet the pan over water that is hot but off a hard boil. Grated cheese held above about 160F with an egg in it will go grainy and weep fat; steady stirring and low heat keep it smooth.
- The cheeseProbably a firm American or mild factory cheddar, though the recipe says only "grated cheese". Two cups grated is roughly 6 to 8 oz, depending on how finely it is grated. Avoid pre-shredded cheese, which is dusted with starch and melts stringy.
- Green pepperHalf a green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped. Cook it in the butter first, in a small skillet if you prefer, since a double boiler softens it slowly.
- Canned tomatoes and cornHalf a cup of canned tomatoes, drained and chopped, and one cup of canned corn, drained. Excess canning liquid will thin the cheese and encourage it to separate.
- Bread-crumsProbably soft crumbs from fresh bread rather than dry packaged crumbs. They are there to bind, and dry crumbs will drink up more moisture and can turn the mixture pasty.
- Order of operationsBeat the egg with the salt and corn before it goes near the pan, then add it off the direct heat and stir at once. Adding a raw egg to hot cheese without premixing sets it in threads.
- YieldSix slices of toast, so three to six servings depending on whether it is supper or a lunch dish. Serve immediately; it stiffens badly as it cools and does not reheat well.
Melted cheese on toast was one of the great chafing-dish dishes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when a spirit lamp on the sideboard let a household produce a hot supper without troubling the kitchen range. Butterick's book, apparently aimed at home sewers and housekeepers, gives a recipe that shows the American habit of the period: take the Welsh original of cheese, ale and mustard, drop the beer, and add the contents of two cans. Green pepper, tomato and corn were the standard shorthand for "Mexican" or "Spanish" in American cookbooks of the era, a label that says more about how canned vegetables were marketed than about Mexican cooking.