culinary experiment: Welsh rarebit

[cellio]

Tonight we attended a pot-luck dinner with the theme "I like cooking with wine; sometimes I even put it in the food" (which has to be one of the best themes we've had in a while). The host clarified that any alcohol would do; she was not restricting it to wine. So we decided to make Welsh rarebit. (Or rabbit, as Dani and half the web calls it.) I had never heard of this dish until Dani mentioned it some years ago, and neither of us has made it before -- but the pot-lucks are in part about experimenting with new things, so off we went. I compared about a dozen recipes found via Google and chose one that seemed to be typical of the lot. There was one outlier, a baked dish, but otherwise the consensus is that Welsh rarebit is a cheese sauce, made with spices and either beer or milk, poured over bread (perhaps toasted, perhaps not).

All of those recipes called for a double boiler. I was speculating about combinations of pans we have that might be pressed into service; a double boiler is just a pot full of boiling water holding a smaller pot with your food, after all. I speculated that this style of indirect heat was to keep the cheese from burning. Dani pointed out that the problem with cooking directly over low heat (you'd need low heat to prevent burning) is that the heat is concentrated in the center of the pan -- but we have a pan that's very good at distributing heat, so maybe I could cook directly in that. That seemed like a good idea.

That was the only deviation I made from the recipe. Other than that I followed it meticulously -- more meticulously than I normally would for regular cooking (as opposed to baking), actually. I even measured the spices.

In high-level form, the recipe is: melt butter, mix in flour, stir until it thickens; add spices (dry mustard, cayenne, paprika) and Worchestershire sauce and stir until blended; add beer and stir constantly until thickened; add cheese and stir occasionally until melted; lightly beat eggs and mix in (first adding some of the cheese to the eggs, I assume to prevent quick-scrambling the eggs).

After the cheese had been cooking for a while it was fairly smooth but not exactly liquid; when I scoped out a spoonful, for instance, it formed a lump rather than pourable sauce. After several minutes of it not changing state further, I proceeded with the egg step. It was hard to get a smooth mixture with the eggs and the small bit of sauce; when I then poured all that back into the pan it was even harder to blend. I wasn't sure whether to leave the pan on the heat while trying to blend it, but I did. Eventually I ended up with something that was mostly blended, except there was some clearish liquid separating out. (Butter? Some chemical subset of the cheese? Not egg.)

It tasted pretty good over toasted French bread, but the consistency was a little too far toward the lumpy side. I'm left wondering whether the double boiler plays a role beyond heat distribution or if I did something else wrong. Maybe some day I'll try it with the double boiler and see what happens.

Comments

[siderea]

I've heard it alleged that double-boilers actually contribute some moisture to what is being cooked, by surrounding it in steam. I don't quite see how that would work, precisely, especially if the double-boiler has a lid, but there you go.

[cellio]

I suppose if the inner pan were not higher than the outer pan, and the lid was for the outer pan, that would keep the moisture in.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

A double boiler doesn't just distribute heat, or add moisture. It also caps the heat at 100 degrees - it can't get any higher.

Chances are, the mixture was, if not burned, thoroughly over-heated because of the direct heat.

You can fake a double boiler by using a metal bowl over a saucepan full of water, or even a bigger saucepan over a smaller.

(I bet the clear liquid was some form of whey.)

[cellio]

It also caps the heat at 100 degrees - it can't get any higher.

Ah, good point. I had assumed that the very lowest setting on the burner would not be too hot (and that it would just take a long time for the cheese to melt, which it did), but you might be right that it was over-heated.

I was going to fake it with two saucepans, though I don't quite have the right combination of sizes for the amount I needed to cook. I hadn't considered a bowl; good idea.

(I bet the clear liquid was some form of whey.)

That seems plausible. The only time I've seen whey (and known what it was) was from a soft cheese (cottage, I think); I don't know how it differs for hard cheeses (cheddar, in this case).

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

We've had good results using a pyrex bowl over a pot of boiling water.

[cellio]

Thanks!

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

It's harder to fake with two saucepans because they don't fit well inside one another.

[cellio]

Yeah, that's part of what led me to try the single-pan approach. The alternative was a pot (not pan) inside a deep skillet, but I worried that the latter wouldn't be deep enough and it would be hard to heat the cheese through.

[goljerp]

It also caps the heat at 100 degrees

Of course, you meant 100 degrees Celsius, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Or 373.16 degrees. (Technically, "degrees" with no qualifier is Kelvin, but from context you meant Celsius.)

Also note that that's the boiling temperature at standard pressure for reasonably pure water; adding salt raises the boiling temperature, while high-altitude (i.e. lower pressure) lowers it.
</chemist>

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I also forgot to mention that water is wet. So sorry.

[goljerp]

I also forgot to mention that water is wet.

Unless, of course, it's in the solid stat...

Oh, wait. I'm doing it again. So sorry :-)

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

If you liked the basic idea of the rarebit, I recommend that you invest in a double boiler or a good fondue pot (I prefer the electric kind; keeping cans of sterno around is a bitch).
Yes, the wrongness of the temperature of direct heat is what caused the rarebit to go wrong. The extra bit of liquid and the lumpiness are caused by the direct heat. Cheese doesn't turn into those lovely sauces very well, with all their odd bits intact, unless they get the super-slow melt of the correct type of heating implement. I ruined a very expensive bottle of wine (at least expensive by the standards of being used to cook) and a block of gruyere (sacrilege to ruin gruyere!) by trying to do a fondue on the stove when my first fondue pot had unexpectedly bitten the dust (one half hour before a dinner party). The result was much like you described: Mostly saucy in texture, but lumpy and with a disturbing amount of extra liquid. As all my previous fondues would have made Julia Child proud, it was obvious that it was the faulty cooking method to blame.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

What they said. I love the stuff -- my grandmother used to make it for us when we were kids. With Velveeta, but velveeta was cheap. And she, too, called it "Rabbit." Wonder if it was a NJ thing?

My mac&cheese sauce I make in the microwave (don't flinch, goldsquare), as I do all my white sauces. I learned the technique back in 1985-ish at a microwave cooking class that came free with the box, and it's so damn easy and nearly failure-proof. I wonder if I could do rarebit that way? Hmm. Sounds like a dinner experiment for Tuesday! (Duncan likes rarebit, too.)

[cellio]

And she, too, called it "Rabbit." Wonder if it was a NJ thing?

I wonder (but haven't done the research) whether "rarebit" is actually the newer word. I can't explain why, but it feels like a back-construction. So my hypothesis is: "rabbit" is a corruption of something (that has been lost); "rarebit" is an attempt to rationalize "rabbit".

wascaly warebit

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

I've heard claims that "Welsh rabbit" was an English insult, a la "Those Welsh are so stupid/poor/whatever that they call cheese on toast 'rabbit'". I don't know how much that explanation is back-construction, but it'd explain the dual-word thing. Welsh used rarebit or something that sounds like Rabbit. The English mis-heard (something of a national pasttime, if history's any indicator) it as rabbit.

Re: lumps. There are some foods that sieze when a magic ratio of binder to liquid is reached. Often, adding more liquid (or removing excess and re-mixing if it separates) will fix the problem. This happens with roux, chocolate, mayo, and a few other emulsions. I wonder if a similar recovery trick might have worked: pull off the liquid, re-mix the solid part, and then slowly re-integrate the liquid. Just a guess.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

We should get hrj in on the conversation -- I'll ask and see what she says...

[figmo.livejournal.com]

You can do rarebit that way.

Re: the lumps, mixing with a stick blender would help get rid of them, too.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I adore my stick blender. No lumpy gravy, excellent mousses, wonderful stuff!

[cellio]

What is a stick blender?

[figmo.livejournal.com]

This is one, as is this.

Basically, you stick it into whatever you want to blend. It works great on the stove (the blades are recessed so they won't nick your cookware).

[cellio]

Oh, that sounds perfect! Because I'd occasionally like to make use of a blender, but I'm not interested in another large appliance (that I'll have to store) that has large, awkward parts to clean. (For the same reason, I have a one-cup electric chopper. The bowl, lid, and blade can all go into the dishwasher, and the thing is small enough to hold with one hand, so storage isn't a problem. It's smaller than the tea kettle.)

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

mmm... sounds yummy. I'll have to try this.

[cellio]

Amounts for key ingredients were: 0.5 stick butter, 2T flour, 1C beer, 2 pounds sharp cheddar, 4 eggs. I think dry mustard and Worchestershire sauce were 2t each, paprika was around 0.25t, and "a dash" of cayenne.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

2 pounds of cheese? Wow... that's a party right there. Does the stuff keep at all?

[cellio]

The recipe claimed that this serves 8. That must be in the universe where people eat this stuff as an entire meal -- and even then I'm not sure. We made it for a group of about 15-20 people (pot-luck, so there was lots of other food too).

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

What everyone else said. Either invest in a double boiler or find a pot in which a pyrex bowl fits nicely. This actually is sometimes a better solution for certain things because of the curved bottom. But for rarebit, I'd have used a double boiler. The cheese has to be very carefully introduced into the liquid, and also the eggs. Direct heat would have caused problems for both.

The upshot is that it doesn't affect the taste as much as the texture so at least you were able to discover that you really like the taste enough to invest in a double boiler!

Rabbit/Rarebit

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I just read about this is What in the Word.

It's supposed to be 'rabbit." "Rarebit" is folk etymology.

I can ramble on this more if you wish, but it gets vaguely anti-Welsh in its origin.

Re: Rabbit/Rarebit

[cellio]

It's supposed to be 'rabbit." "Rarebit" is folk etymology.

Thanks. I'm curious about the origin of the terms.

Re: Rabbit/Rarebit

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Alas, the books I have the information in are at home and I am at work.

Tonight, I'll type up a summary of what they say.

Re: Rabbit/Rarebit

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Here's what Michael Quinion of World Wide Words (http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/welsh.htm) has to say about it:

Use of the word Welsh itself as a phrase former is limited. Welsh rabbit is basically cheese on toast (the word is not “rarebit” by the way, that’s the result of false etymology; “rabbit” is here being used in the same way as “turtle” in “mock-turtle soup”, which has never been near a turtle, or “duck” in “Bombay duck”, which was actually a dried fish called bummalo).

And here (http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/txt/s1441689.htm) is an Australian radio network's answer to the same question.

Re: Rabbit/Rarebit

[cellio]

Thanks!