Welsh Rarebit with a Poached Egg

Name: Welsh Rarebit with a Poached Egg
Yield: 2
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 4 thick slices good bread, toasted; 8 oz sharp cheddar, grated; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; ½ cup ale or milk; 2 teaspoons English mustard; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire; 2 eggs, for poaching — not too runny; Black pepper

Serve when

Order it in full, at speed, without consulting the menu — Alma's breakfast is taken down verbatim in the film's most famous order.

In the movie

Theatrical

00:13:47 The hotel breakfast where Reynolds meets Alma and orders like a man possessed: 'a Welsh rarebit, with a poached egg on top — not too runny — bacon, scones, butter, cream, jam... and some sausages.' She keeps the ticket.

The breakfast order is the film's overture: appetite as character. Reynolds Woodcock's precise gluttony ('and some sausages') tells you everything about a man of exacting hungers — and Alma's raised eyebrow answers it.

Ingredients

4 thick slices good bread, toasted
8 oz sharp cheddar, grated
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
½ cup ale or milk
2 teaspoons English mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire
2 eggs, for poaching — not too runny
Black pepper

Method

Make the rarebit: melt butter, add flour, then ale; melt in the cheese with mustard and Worcestershire to a thick paste.
Spread lavishly on the toast and grill (broil) until blistered and bronzed, 2 to 3 minutes under high heat — watch it, not the clock.
Poach the eggs 3 minutes — set whites, yolk just past runny, per the specification. A splash of vinegar in barely simmering water, and slide each egg in from a cup — the whites set tidy instead of trailing.
Crown each rarebit with its egg and grind over pepper.
Serve with the full retinue — bacon, scones, butter, cream, jam — or at minimum, conviction.