HFF 6.1: Keep It Simple

And we're back for round 6!

The Challenge: Keep it Simple: Ease back into the new season with something simple: few ingredients, straightforward instructions, easy to clean up, or whatever makes a dish "simple" for you. 

The Recipe: Welch [sic] Rarebit from Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book and Young Housekeeper's Assistant. I previously made three versions of Welsh Rarebit from Soyer, but decided to try a new one because I like bread and cheese, and wanted to see how a different receipt would play out.

WELCH RAREBIT. Cut a pound of cheese in slices a quarter of an inch thick, put a piece of butter the size of an egg in a small frying pan, lay in the cheese, cook it about five minutes, add two eggs well beaten, a dessert spoonful of mixed mustard, a little pepper, stir it up, have ready some slices of buttered toast, turn the cheese over it, and send it to the table very hot. It is also very good cooked without the eggs.

[Fun fact: the spelling error is corrected in the 1869 and later editions of Mrs. Putnam's book. I haven't found an earlier printing of the revised 1858 text, so I'm not sure when the error was caught.]

The Date/Year and Region: 1849, Boston

How Did You Make It: On a quarter scale, I melted ~4oz of cheddar cheese in ~1.5Tbsp of butter, then added ~1/2 tsp of yellow mustard, and a dash of black pepper. While this was melting, I toasted a half-dozen slices of baguette in the oven; when the bread was toasted, I buttered it and then poured the cheese over the bread.

Time to Complete: 15 minutes

Total Cost: $3

How Successful Was It?: Quick and tasty. The mustard flavor came through, which added a fun complexity to the delicious standard "bread and cheese" flavor. The cheese texture was perfectly smooth when the bread was done, and unfortunately started clumping once I took it off the heat (to keep it from burning while buttering the toast). The butter on the toast was unnecessary, as there was a ton of melted butter in the cheese. The amount of mustard used was quite suitable, and I think I guesses right on the proportion of cheese to bread (another slice wouldn't have been amiss, but no more than that).

How Accurate Is It?: I used the given variant without eggs, because the scaled down version would need 1/2 egg. Mrs. Putnam doesn't specify bread or cheese varieties, so I opted for a baguette (French, but also the tastiest bread option at the store) and cheddar (because all of the other British-origin cheese varieties had additional flavors in them). Soyer's receipt had specified Gloucester cheese for Welsh rarebit, but I couldn't find one without chives in it. For the 'mixed' mustard, I used yellow mustard out of the bottle.

Melting the cheese in butter on the stovetop.

Welsh Rarebit: melted cheese over bread.