The Complete Book of Cheese Part 11

Grilled Sardine Rabbit

Make a Basic Rabbit and pour it over sardines, skinned, boned, halved and grilled, on b.u.t.tered toast.

Similarly cooked fillets of any small fish will make as succulent a grilled Rabbit.

Roe Rabbits

Slice cooked roe of shad or toothsome eggs of other fish, grill on toast, b.u.t.ter well and pour a Basic Rabbit over. Although shad roe is esteemed the finest, there are many other sapid ones of salmon, herring, flounder, cod, etc.

Plain Sardine Rabbit

Make Basic Rabbit with only 2 cups of cheese, and in place of the egg yolks and beer, stir in a large tin of sardines, skinned, boned and flaked.

Anchovy Rabbit

Make Basic Rabbit, add 1 tablespoon of imported East Indian chutney with the egg yolks and beer at the finish, spread toast thickly with anchovy paste and b.u.t.ter, and pour the Rabbit over.

Smoked sturgeon, whiting, eel, smoked salmon, and the like

Lay cold slices or flakes of any fine smoked fish (and all of them are fine) on hot b.u.t.tered toast and pour a Basic Rabbit over the fish.

The best combination we ever tasted is made by laying a thin slice of smoked salmon over a thick one of smoked sturgeon.

Smoked Cheddar Rabbit

With or without smoked fish, Rabbit-hunters whose palates crave the savor of a wisp of smoke go for a Basic Rabbit made with smoked Cheddar in place of the usual aged, but unsmoked, Cheddar.

We use a two-year-old that Phil Alpert, Mr. Cheese himself, brings down from Canada and has specially smoked in the same savory room where sturgeon is getting the works. So his Cheddar absorbs the de luxe flavor of six-dollar-per-pound sturgeon and is sold for a fraction of that.

And just in case you are fishing around for something extra special, serve this smoky Rabbit on oven-browned Bombay ducks, those crunchy flat toasts of East Indian fish.

Or go Oriental by accompanying this with cups of smoky Lapsang Soochong China tea.

Crumby Rabbit

1 tablespoon b.u.t.ter 2 cups grated cheese 1 cup stale bread crumbs soaked with 1 cup milk 1 egg, lightly beaten Salt Cayenne Toasted crackers

Melt cheese in b.u.t.ter, stir in the soaked crumbs and seasonings.

When cooked smooth and creamy, stir in the egg to thicken the mixture and serve on toasted crackers, dry or b.u.t.tered, for contrast with the bread.

Some Rabbiteers monkey with this, lacing it with half a cup of catsup, making a sort of pink baboon out of what should be a white monkey.

There is a cult for Crumby Rabbits variations on which extend all the way to a deep ca.s.serole dish called Baked Rabbit and consisting of alternate layers of stale bread crumbs and grated-cheese crumbs. This illegitimate three-layer Rabbit is moistened with eggs beaten up with milk, and seasoned with salt and paprika.

Crumby Tomato Rabbit

2 teaspoons b.u.t.ter 2 cups grated cheese 1/2 cup soft bread crumbs 1 cup tomato soup Salt and pepper 1 egg, lightly beaten

Melt cheese in b.u.t.ter, moisten bread crumbs with the tomato soup and stir in; season, add egg and keep stirring until velvety.

Serve on toasted crackers, as a contrast to the bread crumbs.

Gherkin or Irish Rabbit

2 tablespoons b.u.t.ter 2 cups grated cheese 1/2 cup milk (or beer) A dash of vinegar 1/2 teaspoon mustard Salt and pepper 1/2 cup chopped gherkin pickles

Melt cheese in b.u.t.ter, steadily stir in liquid and seasonings.

Keep stirring until smooth, then add the pickles and serve.

This may have been called Irish after the green of the pickle.

Dutch Rabbit

Melt thin slices of any good cooking cheese in a heavy skillet with a little b.u.t.ter, prepared mustard, and a splash of beer.

Have ready some slices of toast soaked in hot beer or ale and pour the Rabbit over them.

The temperance version of this subst.i.tutes milk for beer and delicately soaks the toast in hot water instead.

Proof that there is no Anglo-Saxon influence here lies in the use of prepared mustard. The English, who still do a lot of things the hard way, mix their biting dry mustard fresh with water before every meal, while the Germans and French bottle theirs, as we do.

Pumpernickel Rabbit

This German deviation is made exactly the same as the Dutch Rabbit above, but its ingredients are the opposite in color.

Black bread (pumpernickel) slices are soaked in heated dark beer (porter or stout) and the yellow cheese melted in the skillet is also stirred up with brunette beer.

Since beer is a kind of liquid bread, it is natural for the two to commingle in Rabbits whether they are blond Dutch or black pumpernickel. And since cheese is only solid milk, and the Cheddar is noted for its beery smell, there is further affinity here. An old English proverb sums it up neatly: "Bread and cheese are the two targets against death."

By the way, the word pumpernickel is said to have been coined when Napoleon tasted his first black bread in Germany. Contemptuously he spat it out with: "This would be good for my horse, Nicole." "_Bon pour Nicole_" in French.

Gruyere Welsh Rabbit _au gratin_

Cut crusts from a half-dozen slices of bread. Toast them lightly, lay in a roasting pan and top each with a matching slice of imported Gruyere 3/8-inch thick. Pepper to taste and cover with bread crumbs. Put in oven 10 minutes and rush to the ultimate consumer.

To our American ears anything _au gratin_ suggests "with cheese," so this Rabbit _au gratin_ may sound redundant. To a Frenchman, however, it means a dish covered with bread crumbs.

Swiss Cheese Rabbit