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Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
3 cups grated old Cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon English dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
Ground white or black pepper to taste (optional)
A dash of cayenne
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (optional)
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/2 cup light beer or ale
4 slices hot buttered toast
Directions:
- Prepare toast crusts and warm serving plates. See tips below.
- Beat egg yolks with beer or ale; set aside. Over boiling water melt butter and cheese together,
stirring steadily with a wooden or plastic spoon
in one direction only.
- Add seasonings and do not interrupt
your rhythmic stirring, as you pour in a bit at a time of
the beer-and-egg mixture until it's all used up. It may take many minutes of constant stirring to achieve
the essential creamy thickness and then some more to slick
it out as smooth as velvet.
- Keep it piping hot but don't let it bubble, for a boiled
Rarebit is a spoiled Rarebit. Only unremitting stirring (and
the best of cheese) will keep it from curdling, getting
stringy or rubbery.
- Pour the Rarebit generously over crisp,
freshly buttered toast and serve instantly on hot
plates.
TIPS: Usually crusts are cut off the bread before toasting, and
some aesthetes toast one side only, spreading the toasted side
with cold butter for taste contrast.
This basic recipes can be made without eggs, although the beaten egg is a guarantee against
stringiness. When the egg is missing, we are sad to record that
a teaspoon or so of cornstarch mixed with milk generally takes its place.
Many Welsh Rarebit lovers have found that Tabasco sauce
steps up the flavor of natural cheese and put it in at the start. We
can only tell you, it is little used and needs a cautious hand, but
some addicts can't leave it out any more than they can swear off the
Worcestershire sauce.
When it comes
to pepper you are fancy-free. As both black and white
pepper are now held in almost equal esteem,
you might equip your hutch with twin hand-mills to do the
grinding fresh, for this is always worth the trouble.
Lay the toast on the hot
plate, buttered side down, and pour the Rarebit over the porous
untoasted side so it can soak in.
NOTE: Although the original bread for Rarebit toast was white,
there is now no limit in choice among whole wheat, graham,
rolls, muffins, buns, croutons and crackers, to infinity.
OLD HUMOUR:
The Welsh Enter Heaven
The Lord had been complaining to St. Peter of the dearth
of good singers in Heaven. "Yet," He said testily, "I hear
excellent singing outside the walls. Why are not those
singers here with me?"
St. Peter said, "They are the Welsh. They refuse to come
in; they say they are happy enough outside, playing with a
ball and boxing and singing such songs as 'Suspan
Fach'"
The Lord said, "I wish them to come in here to sing Bach
and Mendelssohn. See that they are in before sundown."
St. Peter went to the Welsh and gave them the commands
of the Lord. But still they shook their heads. Harassed,
St. Peter went to consult with St. David, who, with a
smile, was reading the works of Caradoc Evans.
St. David said, "Try toasted cheese. Build a fire just
inside the gates and get a few angels to toast cheese in
front of it" This St. Peter did. The heavenly aroma of the
sizzling, browning cheese was wafted over the walls and,
with loud shouts, a great concourse of the Welsh came
sprinting in. When sufficient were inside to make up a male
voice choir of a hundred, St Peter slammed the gates.
However, it is said that these are the only Welsh in
Heaven.
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