CHEESE TOASTS.
These are certainly to be ranked among the best we can make for our little home dinners. Carefully cooked and served hot there are few toasts more generally liked.
A cheese toaster, with a hot-water tin and screen in the style of a miniature Dutch oven, is a useful utensil in this branch. For a simple toasted-cheese toast, all you have to do is to melt a little butter in the tin dish, and lay thereon some finely sliced, sound, mild cheese; set it in front of the fire till melted, and serve quickly, hot dry toast accompanying. The water in the hollow tin dish must be boiling. Some put in a little beer, and some season the cheese with mustard and pepper.
The toaster may also be used in this way:—butter the tin dish, place upon it a slice of well-fried toast slightly buttered, over this put some finely shredded cheese, set in front of the fire, and when the cheese has melted, serve.
The well-known title, Welsh rabbit, or rare-bit, is often applied to elaborate cheese toasts which have no real claim to it. The correct thing is very simple, viz., cut a slice of mild sound cheese, and prepare a well-toasted piece of toast, slightly buttered, to receive it. Put the latter on a fireproof dish in front of the fire to keep hot while you toast the cheese on both sides, but not so much as to cause the oil to ooze and drip from the cheese. As soon as it reaches the proper stage lay it on the toast and send to table quickly.
The native cook in India makes a by no means bad cheese toast, which may be thus described:—(a) Grate two ounces of mild dry cheese, mix with it an ounce of butter, a dessertspoonful of made mustard, a half saltspoonful of salt, and the same of Nepaul pepper with a well-beaten egg. Mix well in a basin and work the mixture till it is smooth. If not as stiff as thick batter add a little grated cheese. Toast a couple of slices of toast, butter them on both sides, place them on a buttered dish that will stand the oven, spread the cheese mixture over them pretty thickly, and bake for eight or ten minutes till nicely coloured.
(b) If you would rather have a smooth, yellow surface, not too crusty or dry, place the prepared toasts in a buttered pie-dish, spread a sheet of oiled paper over them, and after ten minutes’ baking in a hot oven they will be ready. Take the pie-dish from the oven, remove the paper, and serve.
Another recipe runs as follows:—(c) Into two ounces of finely sifted white crumbs beat up an egg whole with a tablespoonful of milk; stir into it two ounces of grated cheese, a dessertspoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of made mustard, half a saltspoonful each of salt and Nepaul pepper, and a pinch of mace; if not sufficiently diluted to form a stiffish batter, add another well-beaten egg, arrange on toasts as in the preceding case, bake, and serve very hot.
To make a cheese toast in the dining-room take two table-spoonfuls of grated cheese, and mingle with it a teaspoonful of mustard powder, a pinch of salt, and a dust of Nepaul pepper. Light a spirit lamp, and, in a little frying-pan placed over it, melt a dessertspoonful of butter; when melted, shake evenly over the butter the powdered cheese, and stir well. As soon as the cheese looks creamy, stop, and pour it over some hot buttered toast brought in on the instant from the kitchen.