Chris's Week Three Recipe: Welsh Rarebit

I got to thinking about Welsh rarebit today (I really don't know why) and I realized that I had never made it myself. So, I picked up a loaf of cracked pepper bread at Great Harvest and started preparing, hoping that the stout that's been living in the back of my fridge for some time now had survived.

Alas, it had not.

But Welsh rarebit can also be made with milk or so said the old copy of Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book that I had picked up years ago in the UK. (How old? I'm not sure as there's no copyright date. A little quick Internet research leads me to believe it might have been published as long ago as 1911.) I've enjoyed looking through this book from time to time, but I had never made a recipe from it. Since one of the secondary goals of this year's blogging project is to weed through all the cookbooks I've accumulated, this was a good opportunity. Following is the recipe as written.

Welsh Rabbit or Rarebit

Ingredients - 4 oz. of Cheshire or Cheddar cheese, 1/2 oz of butter, 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of milk or ale, mustard, pepper, buttered toast.

Method - Cut the cheese into small pieces, place these in a saucepan with the butter, milk, or ale, 1/2 a mustardspoonful of mustard, and pepper to taste, and stir the mixture by the side of the fire until it resembles a thick cream Have ready some squares of hot, well-buttered toast, pour on the cheese preparation, and serve as quickly as possible.

NB - I halved the recipe, used 2 T milk, and 1/2 t of dried mustard. The result was very thick.

Would I make this recipe again? Yes, but I'd be more careful about heating up, because the sauce broke a bit at the end. Upon consideration, I don't much care for the cracked pepper bread.