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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with butter, egg yolk, and Madeira wine, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If the cheese is soft, cut it into small strips; if hard, grate it.

  2. In a deep dish, combine the cheese and butter, and place on the stove.

  3. Whip the egg yolk with the Madeira wine.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir the cheese as it melts until mixed with the butter.

  2. Gradually add the egg yolk and wine mixture, stirring until smooth.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then spread over hot toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Madeira wine + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the sauce, providing the main body, flavor and richness of the rarebit.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the melted cheese smooth and glossy rather than grainy.
Egg yolk
Acts as an emulsifier and thickener, helping the sauce set creamy when gently heated.
Madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat. If the cheese is too hot or the yolk is added too fast, it can scramble or curdle, so add it gradually while stirring.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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