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Cheese Mayonnaise Sandwiches
One hard boiled egg; one-fourth pound of common cheese, grated; one-half teaspoon each of salt, pepper and mustard; and one tablespoon each of melted butter and vinegar (or cold water if vinegar is not liked). Crumble and mix the yolk of egg with the butter until it is smooth; then add the salt, mustard, pepper and cheese, mixing each thoroughly as it is added; next stir in the vinegar or water. Spread this mixture between bread, crackers, or pieces of oat-cake.
A cheese spread stiffened with hard-boiled yolk and slackened with vinegar. It comes together in five minutes, but a few of the quantities and terms need translating.
- "Common cheese"Period shorthand for plain firm factory cheese — what we would call a mild to medium cheddar or a Colby. Avoid anything soft, washed-rind or heavily aged; the recipe wants something that grates dry and mixes stiff.
- Weight to volumeA quarter pound of cheese, finely grated, is roughly one packed cup. That is the whole body of the spread, so grate it fine rather than shredding it coarse.
- Mustard means powderIn a recipe of this period, an unqualified "mustard" in a half-teaspoon quantity is dry English mustard powder, not prepared mustard from a jar. If you substitute prepared mustard, use about twice the volume and cut back the vinegar.
- Season by taste, not by ruleHalf a teaspoon each of salt and pepper against four ounces of cheese is aggressive by current palates, particularly the pepper. Start with a quarter teaspoon of each and adjust once the cheese is in.
- The leftover whiteOnly the yolk is used. Chop the white finely and fold it in if you want more body, or keep it for a salad — the original simply abandons it.
- Work the yolk firstThe hinge of the recipe: mash the yolk into the melted butter until it is genuinely smooth before anything else goes in. Yolk lumps will not break up once the cheese is added, and the spread turns grainy.
- ConsistencyThe vinegar or water is there to bring the paste to spreading point. Add it a teaspoon at a time; the mixture stiffens as the butter cools, so aim slightly softer than you want it.
- Oat-cakeA thin, hard Scottish or northern English oatmeal biscuit, still sold in supermarkets. Any plain cracker serves the same purpose.
- YieldAbout two-thirds of a cup of spread — enough for four to six rounds of sandwiches, or a plate of crackers. Keep it covered in the refrigerator and use within two or three days.
There is no mayonnaise in these sandwiches, and an egg yolk beaten into fat with vinegar is perhaps close enough in spirit to have borrowed the name. Sandwiches were then in the middle of a long vogue, driven by afternoon teas, picnics, and the growing habit of carrying a packed lunch to work or school, and cookbooks of the period run to dozens of fillings built on whatever kept well without refrigeration. A cheese paste bound with butter and yolk was among the more practical of them: cheap, sturdy, and made from ingredients any kitchen already had.