Cheese on toast is the base, and this Hairy Bikers Welsh rarebit recipe adds a beer sauce, an egg yolk and English mustard to it. At 150g of Cheddar over four slices, British Classics serves 4, and each slice is about 335 calories for a quarter of an hour’s work.
For when you are “cold, tired and hungry”, the headnote offers “posh cheese on toast”, which is where mustard, Worcestershire and beer come in. Since the cheese melts into a butter and flour roux thinned with dark beer, it spreads like a paste rather than sliding off.
Spreading matters more than the sauce, since the book wants the slices completely covered, which means right out to the crusts. As any bare edge scorches in the 20 to 30 seconds the top needs under a hot grill, that coverage is not fussiness.
Hairy Bikers Welsh Rarebit Recipe
Description
Butter and flour are cooked for half a minute before strong dark beer goes in slowly and simmers to a thick, smooth sauce. Then grated Cheddar, an egg yolk, mustard, Worcestershire and optional cayenne melt into it, and it cools while the bread toasts. Once spread thickly to the edges, each slice goes back under the grill until it bubbles.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Start the roux: preheat the grill to high, then melt 25g butter in a non-stick pan and stir in 25g plain flour. Then cook it over a low heat for 30 seconds, stirring constantly.
- Add the beer: pour in 100ml strong dark beer slowly, stirring as it goes in. Then simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, still stirring, until the sauce is thick and smooth.
- Melt the cheese: add 150g grated mature Cheddar, 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp English mustard and 4 tsp Worcestershire sauce. Then add a pinch of cayenne if you like it, and keep stirring over the heat until the cheese has melted.
- Season and cool: grind in plenty of black pepper and take the pan off the heat. Then set it aside to cool for a couple of minutes, because a cooler sauce spreads thicker.
- Toast the bread: lay 4 thick slices of wholemeal or granary bread on a baking tray lined with foil. Then toast them under the grill on each side until golden brown.
- Spread: spoon the cheese sauce thickly over each slice. Then push it right out to the crusts so no bread is showing, or the edges will burn.
- Grill: slide the tray back under the hot grill for 20 to 30 seconds. Then pull it out as soon as the tops are lightly browned and bubbling.
- Serve: add a couple of rashers of cooked bacon on top if you fancy their headnote treat. Then eat straight away while the cheese is still soft.
FAQs
Can I make Welsh rarebit without alcohol?
In Mums Still Know Best the same recipe adds 50ml of milk to the beer, so milk alone is my swap for the 100ml here. With the milk swap the roux still needs its 2 to 3 minutes of simmering, or the flour tastes raw. Or the Hairy Dieters version gives you a way out, since its liquid is “white wine, cider or apple juice”, and apple juice works.
What is the Chicken and Egg Welsh rarebit with Welsh ale?
A richer, looser version that makes six slices, with three egg yolks and 250g of Cheddar to only 75ml of stout. In that book the flour drops to two teaspoons and the mustard is powder, while the headnote says cider “also works well”. And raw onion can go in before grilling, in the same book as their pickled-egg scotch eggs, signed off “Tasty, tasty, very, very tasty!”.
What is the Hairy Dieters sleep supper Welsh rarebit?
It sits in the sleep suppers chapter of Eat Well Every Day, and it works a leek, squash and a grated apple through the cheese. Although their mams “used to say that eating cheese late in the day could lead to nightmares”, they cut back the cheese for easier digestion. So it uses 200g over four large slices, more than here, but no butter or flour, and a whole egg instead of a yolk.
What goes into their curried Welsh rarebit?
Two teaspoons of curry powder in the roux, then red onion, garlic, coriander stems and a shot of hot sauce, from Our Family Favourites. Before the sauce goes on, the sourdough gets a thin scrape of lime pickle or mango chutney and a layer of diced tomato. And the headnote sums up why it exists: “Long live tolerance and understanding in food.”
What do Si and Dave put on top of a rarebit?
The headnote says they are “not averse to piling a couple of slices of bacon on the top”, so bacon is the official answer. Or ham, which they call a Welsh croque-madame, and which turns a teatime snack into supper. On a Welsh table it joins their Glamorgan sausages, while their devilled kidneys are the other toast topping worth ten minutes.
