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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with butter and beer, served over a slice of bread and seasoned with pepper, sea salt, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the finely cut cheese and a little butter.

  2. Add 1-2 tablespoons of beer and heat until the cheese is fully dissolved.

Serve

  1. Cut a slice of bread and pour the cheese mixture over it.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and catsup to taste.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone (spice).

  5. Butter + beertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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, richness and flavor of the rarebit.
Beer
Thins the melted cheese into a smooth sauce and adds a light malty flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the cheese sauce smooth and glossy as it melts.
Bread
Acts as the base that holds the warm cheese sauce.

The step that matters

Melt the cheese gently. Cheese is rich in protein and fat; high heat makes it tighten, separate and turn grainy. Heating slowly with a little liquid keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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