Toasted Cheese, or Welsh Rare-bit

The Book of Household Management · Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) · 1861

Source: The Book of Household Management
Time: Cook: 5 min Total: 5 min
Yield: 1.0 slice per person
Status: success · extracted 13 days ago
Not a recipe: No

Ingredients (6)

Slices of bread ↝ Bread, vegetable [Yeast breads]
butter ↝ Butter, stick, unsalted [Dairy and Egg Products]
Cheshire or Gloucester cheese ↝ Cheese, cheshire [Dairy and Egg Products]
mustard ↝ Mustard greens, raw [Vegetables and Vegetable Products]
pepper ↝ Spices, pepper, black [Spices and Herbs]
salt ↝ Salt, table, iodized [Spices and Herbs]

Instructions (6)

Cut the bread into slices about 1/2 inch in thickness; pare off the crust, toast the bread slightly without hardening or burning it, and spread it with butter.
Cut some slices, not quite so large as the bread, from a good rich fat cheese; lay them on the toasted bread in a cheese-toaster; be careful that the cheese does not burn, and let it be equally melted.
Spread over the top a little made mustard and a seasoning of pepper, and serve very hot, with very hot plates.
To facilitate the melting of the cheese, it may be cut into thin flakes or toasted on one side before it is laid on the bread.
As it is so essential to send this dish hot to table, it is a good plan to melt the cheese in small round silver or metal pans, and to send these pans to table, allowing one for each guest.
Slices of dry or buttered toast should always accompany them, with mustard, pepper, and salt.

Original Text

TOASTED CHEESE, or WELSH RARE-BIT.

1652. INGREDIENTS.—Slices of bread, butter, Cheshire or Gloucester cheese, mustard, and pepper.

Mode.—Cut the bread into slices about 1/2 inch in thickness; pare off the crust, toast the bread slightly without hardening or burning it, and spread it with butter. Cut some slices, not quite so large as the bread, from a good rich fat cheese; lay them on the toasted bread in a cheese-toaster; be careful that the cheese does not burn, and let it be equally melted. Spread over the top a little made mustard and a seasoning of pepper, and serve very hot, with very hot plates. To facilitate the melting of the cheese, it may be cut into thin flakes or toasted on one side before it is laid on the bread. As it is so essential to send this dish hot to table, it is a good plan to melt the cheese in small round silver or metal pans, and to send these pans to table, allowing one for each guest. Slices of dry or buttered toast should always accompany them, with mustard, pepper, and salt.

Time.—About 5 minutes to melt the cheese.

Average cost, 1-1/2d. each slice.

Sufficient.—Allow a slice to each person. Seasonable at any time.

Note.—Should the cheese be dry, a little butter mixed with it will be an improvement.

"COW CHEESE."—It was only fifty years after Aristotle—the fourth century before Christ—that butter began to be noticed as an aliment. The Greeks, in imitation of the Parthians and Scythians, who used to send it to them, had it served upon their tables, and called it at first "oil of milk," and later, bouturos, "cow cheese."

Notes

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