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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese-based sauce served hot over toast or wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, combine cheese and milk or cream.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix mustard, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, and eggs; beat well.

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

  4. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over toast or wafers, browning the toast on one side only.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the base and gives the rarebit its body and rich flavour.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, spoonable texture.
Milk or cream
Loosens the melted cheese so it spreads smoothly instead of clumping.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy finish and a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the melted cheese. Egg proteins set when heated, so the sauce can curdle or turn grainy if it gets too hot or is not stirred constantly. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring steadily lets the eggs thicken it smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, milk, butter, sauce, pepper. 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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