Kill the Wabbit

This isn't about a Wabbit of the Easter variety, nor a real rabbit either.

It's about Welsh Rarebit. Another creature entirely.

Supposedly the name was coined out of the attitude of superiority that the British felt towards the Welsh. Since the dish is essentially melted cheese on bread, and designed for folk that could not afford meat, at least not everyday, the Brits in their charming way declared that it was what the poor Welsh would claim to be rabbit. Thus Welsh Rarebit. So even if you could not afford animal flesh in your pot, you could feel superior to those wretched Welsh. Or something like that. I'm not a history major, y'know?!


In any case, there's a few ingredients in Rarebit other than the aforementioned bread and cheese, cheddar, by the way. For example, there's also beer of the extra stout type. Guinness, actually. And some dry mustard, flour, water and Worcestershire sauce.


Here's a suggestion: avoid English food! The dry toast alone was better than Rarebit. Toast with melted Cheddar on it is way better than Rarebit. That stout is NASTY! And adding mustard only accentuates the problem.


Actually it wasn't nearly as bad tasting as it looks---and it does look pretty nasty---but I was disappointed in it. I guess it has more to do with high expectations than the actual flaws of the dish. Still, the melted cheddar on toast would have tasted better and would have been a lot faster and easier to prepare.


Are there any fans of Welsh Rarebit out there and if so, why do you like it? For me the taste was too "smoky" with a vaguely nasty mouth feel to the sauce. Fortunately I discovered that if you drank enough Smirnoff Ice with the meal it wasn't so bad. By the third one the toast actually was finished and I wasn't all that annoyed with the Guinness Company anymore.


(Disclaimer: the contents here fully reflect the opinions and views of the author)

Comments

Evil Twin's Wife said…
Growing up, my mom would just put a slice of american cheese on a slice of bread and then pop it under the broiler for a few minutes - that's what we called Welsh Rabbit (and yes, we said "rabbit"). My son loves it and eerily enough, my daughter just asked for it, even though she is across the room and cannot read...
8:03 AM
kenju said…
I make Welsh rarebit according to directions in my old copy of The Joy of Cooking. I use my beer (Natural Light) and medium cheddar, and I make it in a double boiler, which doesn't burn the cheese as it might if you make it in a regular pot. We serve it over toasted English muffins, with a slice of tomato and 2-3 slices of bacon crumbled into it. Try it that way and you might like it. It's very smooth and tasty!
8:48 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nitroflex at home

Image
I mentioned a few days ago that I'd purchased off of Craig's List an exercise machine. A Nitroflex, to be more specific, for the grand sum of $75. The boxes you see to the left were bought by the seller as discontinued merchandise over a year ago and stored in his back yard storage shed. You might be able to see some of the bugs and such that had made their homes on these boxes. I left them out on my deck for a few days before opening them to allow the insects to leave gracefully or die in the sun. The picture to the left is the pieces from the box, unboxed, and up in one of my upstairs bedrooms. For the most part it wasn't difficult to move it around though two pieces were heavy and a number of them were kinda long and bulky to be wandering about the house with. Surprisingly, this kit didn't require any extra tools. There were two allen keys and one combo wrench included in the boxes and that was all it took to put it together. The whole thing only took about half an h
Read more

flea!

Image
Yep, that's one of those damn blood suckers. Renee's revenge on my neglecting her feelings, no doubt. We guys just have it so tough! LOL This here is a picture of my ankle and while it's not very obvious, I guess, there's a bunch of flea bites on there. Itches a bit, dammit. The annoying part is that the damn fleas can't use my blood--fleas are mostly species specific and don't have the proper enzymes to make meals out of blood from other critters--so they're not getting anything out of biting me. It's just frustration and starvation driving their biting. Well, I guess the real annoying part is the bites themselves, but I wanted to seem a little sensitive there for a moment. But no more of that. Kill the fleas! While most of the bites are on my ankles and calves, there's an occasional bite up higher like these 4 on my thigh. They're kinda hard to see through the hair but I wasn't able to focus on the skin with all the hair in the way. Sorry.
Read more

ankles: the sequel

Image
I've heard rumors that one post about my sprained ankle wasn't enough so here's more pictures to satisfy a public hungry for swollen flesh... This was taken the morning after I sprained the ankle. There's starting to be a black and blue mark from the blood vessels leaking At this point the swelling is still very localized to the lateral side of the left ankle and presumably that's the tendon that was affected (very likely since I really screwed it up 15 years ago and it's got extra play in it) In this picture, taken on Sunday evening about 25 hours after the injury, you can see the edema, or swelling, has spread out over the top and entire lateral side of the foot. There's also more evidence of hematoma at the skin above the metatarsals. At the same time, there's still significant swelling at the original site to the point that it totally eclipses the left ankle. Here's a lateral view taken at the same time as the photo above to show the hematoma bet
Read more