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Welsh Rabbit

A historical recipe from The cult of the chafing dish, by Frank Schloesser (1905).

A historical recipe

The cult of the chafing dish, by Frank Schloesser (1905). Project Gutenberg eBook #73560.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Source and licence

From The cult of the chafing dish, by Frank Schloesser (1905). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #73560 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73560). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

United Kingdom. Associated with United Kingdom by a demonym leading its title: Welsh (confidence 0.55). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

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Ingredients

Method

  1. Use about half a pound of hard, dry, sound, mild cheese, without flaw or speck.
  2. Cut it up into tiny dice, in fact the smaller the better;
  3. some indeed insist on grating the cheese, but I have found this to be an unnecessary labour.
  4. Put a tablespoon of butter into the dish and knead it well with a wooden spoon until it begins to sizzle.
  5. Add half a teaspoon of Paprika, rather less of salt, and a tablespoon of beer (anything except bitter).
  6. Mix all thoroughly.
  7. Turn in the cheese and stir it about until it gets as consistent as thick cream, adding two to three more tablespoons of beer gradually, and taking great care that it does not become lumpy or stringy.
  8. Now put in a teaspoonful of made mustard.
  9. Keep on stirring until bubbles appear.
  10. It is then ready.
  11. You should beforehand get some toasts ready and as soon as the bubbling is well developed plunge in the toasts and cover them with the cheese.
  12. Serve on very hot plates.
  13. Milk can be used instead of beer, and condiments may be added in the shape of Worcester sauce or Tabasco, but I do not recommend them.
  14. Everything depends on regular and practically continuous stirring, always in one direction of course.
  15. If you want to turn the Welsh Rabbit into a Buck Rabbit, drop a poached egg upon each piece of toast on top of the cheese.
  16. Here you have the whole art of Rabbiting, and it is a very good thing to eat--sometimes.
  17. The right and only place for Savouries at a dinner-party is fixed and determined by immutable custom, but at a Chafing-Dish meal, be it luncheon or supper, more latitude is allowed, and a savoury may pop up here and there at the most unexpected--and thereby most delightful--moment.
  18. I see nothing heterodox in having a savoury instead of hors d’œuvres, or introducing it after the fish or instead of sweets.
  19. Few people, and those only of the baser sort, despise a simple savoury.
  20. It is such a succulent trifle, a mere mouthful of suggestion, an airy nothing that agrees with everything.
  21. There are of course savouries and savouries.
  22. I can only give a very few recipes, but have tried to make them as diverse and appetising as possible.