Welsh rarebit on crustless white toast
Not the same thing as cheese on toast
Doubles easily in the same pan for two slices. Grill them side by side rather than stacked.
Cheese on toast and rarebit are not the same dish, even though they look alike from across the kitchen. The difference is in the sauce: cheese melted with a little milk, butter and flour into something that spreads like a thick paste rather than a layer that separates into grease and rubber under the grill. A scrape of smooth mustard sharpens it without adding any real heat. Take the crusts off, which leaves you a slice you could eat with a teaspoon if you needed to. Grate the Cheddar finely rather than cubing it, or it sits in lumps in a sauce that is already thick enough.
Ingredients
Contains: Gluten, Milk, Mustard
- 2 slicewhite bread, crusts removed
- 15 gunsalted butter
- 15 gplain flour
- 60 mlwhole milk
- 100 gCheddar, grated
- ½ tspsmooth mustard
Method
Toast the bread lightly on both sides, until it is dry and pale gold rather than crisp.
Melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat, stir in the flour, and cook for a minute, stirring, to a sandy paste.
Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the milk until smooth, then return to a low heat for a minute more.
Stir in the Cheddar and the mustard, a little at a time, until you have a thick, smooth paste that holds its shape on the spoon.
Spread the mixture thickly over the crustless toast, right to the edges, and grill for 2 to 3 minutes, until it blisters and turns a deep golden-brown. Serve at once, while it is molten in the middle.
Watch-points
- Cut the crusts off. The leaflet allows them, but they are the hardest part of the slice to chew and the first thing to catch a sore mouth.
- Use smooth mustard only, no wholegrain, so the sauce stays completely lump-free.
Stoma note: Like any white bread, the toast underneath firms up stoma output rather than loosening it.
Make it more nourishing
- Use 130 g of Cheddar instead of 100, for a thicker sauce.
- Stir a tablespoon of double cream into the sauce along with the milk.
- Butter the toast before the sauce goes on, a good 10 g a slice, so it soaks into the crumb under the grill.
Swaps
- Instead of whole milk, use 60 ml of brown ale
- the traditional version, maltier and sharper. The alcohol will not fully cook off in a sauce this quick, so keep to milk if you are avoiding it
- Instead of Cheddar, use a mix of Cheddar and Gruyère
- a nuttier flavour, melts just as smoothly