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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with melted cheese, cream, mustard, and spices, served hot over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, combine the cheese and cream or milk.

  2. Mix the mustard, salt, and cayenne, then add the beaten egg.

  3. Once the cheese is melted, stir in the mustard mixture and butter.

  4. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the toast and serve immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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 to provide the main flavour and rich, creamy body.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, spoonable texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and helps the cheese melt into a smooth, pourable sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese and egg.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set when heated, so the sauce can curdle or scramble if it gets too hot or is left unstirred. Gentle, constant stirring over a double boiler keeps it smooth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, cream, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, cream, pepper, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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