Recipes

Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese – The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened 1669

This was redacted for the Virtual cooking challenge #3 – Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese – The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened which was posted on the SCA Virtual Classroom and Artisan Display.

This is a picture of a recipe from “Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie, Opened” (1669 England) . (https://amzn.to/2y05WUC)

This dish is fondly called “Cheesy goo” in The West. I’ve made it previously and loosly followed Cariadoc’s redaction. It’s a very forgiving recipe. I previously posted about his recipe here: https://research.fibergeek.com/2004/09/11/savoury-tosted-or-melted-cheese/

Sylvie’s 2020 redaction for Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese AKA Cheesy Goo

4 strips of pepper bacon
1 yellow onion, chopped
4 oz salted butter
8 oz cream cheese, chopped into 1 inch cubes
4-6 oz brie, chopped into 1 inch cubes (I used the rind as well)

Cook bacon until crisp. Chop and set aside. Fry onion in bacon fat until golden brown. Set aside with the bacon.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add cream cheese and brie chunks to the melted butter. Continue to cook over medium heat stirring frequently until the butter and cheese are smoothly combined.

Turn heat to low. Add the bacon and onion to the cheese mixture.

Serve with toast, meat, vegetables and fruits for dipping.

To date, the shortest cooking video I’ve ever made.

Post Mortem:
When you drop the onions into the bacon fat.. be careful and don’t splash yourself. That shit hurts. [edited to add: Day 2 after the burn it sprouted a blister. So yes, I gave myself a small 2nd degree burn while making cheesy goo :/ ]

I love asparagus, but my asparagus was very thin so did not serve as a good cheesy vehicle. I used my toasts as a spoon and ate it with my asparagus.. but my asparagus did very little of the work.

I think this could be made with less butter. In fact I think that would be more faithful to the original recipe. The original specifies that we should use the butter that drips off of vegetables. I feel that would fall closer to 2oz than it did to 4oz. Now, don’t get me wrong.. I’ll eat the heck out of this.. but I think it would still work well with a bit less butter.

I also used about 5 oz of brie. I think I should have used all of it. So next time I’ll use 8oz of brie. I noted in the video that I left the rind on and it made the mixture a bit lumpy. I neglected to mention that because I add bacon and onion in the next step the “lumpiness” of the mixture or the fact that you might eat brie rind is completely un-noticeable.

I completely forgot to add the white pepper. C’est la vie. I did not miss it.

10/10 will definitely do this again.

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