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Welsh or Scotch Rabbit

A melted cheese and butter mixture flavored with mustard and stout, served hot with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese 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 or Scotch Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter with the grated cheese.

  2. Add salt, pepper, mustard, and brown stout or Port wine.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a cheese toaster and stir until the cheese is dissolved.

  2. Brown the mixture and serve it hot with toast on the side.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cheese + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese
Melts into a smooth, stretchy base that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the cheese melt smoothly and gives a richer mouthfeel.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the cheese.
Brown stout or port wine
Adds depth and roasted or sweet notes, and thins the mixture as it heats.

The step that matters

Browning the mixture. Cheese and sugars in the wine brown quickly under heat. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs enough heat for flavour, but too much heat scorches the cheese and makes it bitter and oily.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, pepper, port wine. 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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