Recipes from Marcão: Recipe from Wales turns toast into a delicacy

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I return after a week in which I was soaked for reasons of Covid – mild symptoms, thanks to the vaccine – to talk about the cuisine of a nation that returns to the World Cup after 64 years: Wales.

In a small territory in the southwest of Great Britain, Wales is a country with just over 3 million inhabitants — the equivalent of the population of Brasilia. Like Ireland and Scotland, its population is of Celtic origin and speaks, in addition to English, its own language, Welsh.

Actor Anthony Hopkins, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones and the place with the longest name in the world: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch are Welsh.

The most famous food in Wales is a snack as simple as it is tasty, the welsh rabbit (“Welsh rabbit”), sometimes spelled Welsh rarebit.

It’s toast topped with a spicy cream cheese, a kind of British version of Swiss fondue.

Welsh people often use cheddar cheese, but — be careful — the orange-tinged requeijão that people call cheddar in Brazil doesn’t work. British cheddar is a mature, semi-hard cheese, usually pale yellow.

For this recipe, I suggest using some cow’s milk cheese that melts well. Steppe, gruyere, kingdom cheese or even the standard Minas. I put gouda on my welsh rabbit.

The cheese is dissolved in a béchamel sauce seasoned with mustard, Worcestershire sauce and beer. Again, tradition calls for a British-style beer such as porter or pale ale. On the flip side: use whatever you’re drinking, it won’t make much difference.

You put some of that cream cheese on the toast and take it to brown in the oven or air fryer. If you’re lucky (or self-controlled), you’ll have cream left over for you to keep in the fridge and make Welsh toast when you get hungry.


welsh rabbit

Yield: 4 to 6 toasts

Difficulty: easy

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon of butter.

1 tablespoon of wheat flour.

1 teaspoon of mustard powder.

150 ml of milk.

50 ml of beer.

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.

200 g of coarsely grated cheese.

Italian bread slices.

Salt and black pepper to taste.

PREPARATION

  1. Melt the butter over low heat and dissolve the flour and mustard in it. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.
  2. Add beer and Worcestershire sauce. Cook for a few minutes, always stirring, until you get a consistent cream. Dissolve the cheese, test for salt (add a little if necessary) and season with pepper. Turn off the fire.
  3. Cover the slices of bread with the cream cheese and bake in the oven or air fryer.

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