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After Dinner Cheese
Mix together a pot of butter, a portion of Roquefort cheese and a dash of cayenne; gradually moisten with a glass of extra dry champagne; work to a smooth paste with a fork and serve spread on toasted water crackers.
A potted cheese in the older English manner, dressed up with champagne and served at the close of a meal. The quantities are given by eye, so the proportions below are a starting point rather than a conversion.
- "A pot of butter""A pot of butter" is not a standard measure, and the recipe gives no clue to its size; as a starting point, take it as roughly 4 oz (1 stick). "A portion of Roquefort" is equally loose. Equal weights of butter and cheese give a spread that holds its shape; more cheese makes it sharper and crumblier.
- Butter temperature is the hingeThe butter must be genuinely soft at room temperature, not melted or chilled. Melted butter will separate when the champagne goes in and the paste will never come back together.
- "A glass of champagne" is not the amount to useThe instruction is to moisten gradually, and a full glass would flood 8 oz of butter and cheese. Add a tablespoon at a time and stop when the mixture is smooth and spreadable — two to three tablespoons is usually enough.
- Extra dry is not the driestIn champagne labelling, extra dry is sweeter than brut. A modern brut or extra brut will taste drier than intended, which is no bad thing against the salt of the Roquefort.
- Cayenne and saltRoquefort is very salty, so no additional salt is needed. A dash of cayenne means a pinch or two — enough to warm the finish without registering as heat.
- Water crackersPlain water biscuits, toasted briefly until crisp and just coloured, then cooled. The recipe gives no oven or temperature, so a moderate oven (around 350F) is a modern suggestion rather than the original's instruction. Warm crackers will melt the spread into an oil slick.
- Making ahead and yieldRoughly 8 oz of butter and cheese fills about 20 to 24 small crackers. The paste keeps three or four days covered in the refrigerator, but bring it back to room temperature before spreading.
Potted cheese — cheese pounded with butter and a seasoning, packed into a crock and eaten on biscuits — is an old English preservation trick that outlived its usefulness and survived as a savoury. By the late nineteenth century it was often served at the end of the meal, where American and British households alike served a sharp mouthful with the last of the wine, a habit that puts this entry in the same territory as Welsh rarebit and devilled biscuits. Roquefort appears fairly often in American cookbooks of this period, imported and expensive enough to signal a good table; the splash of champagne here is doing the same work, turning a thrifty larder preparation into something for company.