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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with beer, butter, and seasonings, poured over bread.

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. Place a slice of bread on a plate 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 a smooth sauce that coats the bread and sets as it cools.
Beer
Thins the melted cheese and adds a mildly bitter, malty flavour.
Bread
Provides a sturdy base that holds the sauce on the plate.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the cheese sauce smooth and glossy.

The step that matters

Heating the cheese with the beer. Cheese turns grainy or stringy if it overheats or boils, because its proteins and fats separate. Heat gently and stir until it melts smoothly.

“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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