Skip to main content
Main

Swiss Rarebit

A toasted English muffin topped with sauerkraut and a cheese sauce made from Swiss cheese, beer, and seasonings.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beer and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 173 recipes mention both. Both carry 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone, which smells spice. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven400°F

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the muffins

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking pan with foil.

  2. Place muffin halves in the baking pan. Toast for 2 to 3 minutes, or until crisp.

  3. Place equal portions of sauerkraut on top of muffin halves, and put pan in broiler. Cook until sauerkraut is heated through.

  4. Remove from oven, and set aside.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Meanwhile, melt margarine in the top half of a double boiler over boiling water and medium heat.

  2. Stir together beer, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, salt, and pepper, and add to margarine.

  3. Toss cheese cubes with cornstarch.

  4. As beer heats, add cheese cubes a few at a time, and stir often until cheese melts.

  5. Remove 1/4 cup hot mixture, and beat into egg to temper it.

  6. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes more, stirring constantly.

  7. Stir egg immediately into melted cheese, and whisk to combine.

Serve

  1. Spoon equal portions of hot cheese over muffin halves, sprinkle with “bacon” bits and paprika, and serve.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beer + cheesetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together173 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + cheesetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,805 recipes

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

  3. Beer + mustardtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together15,427 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Swiss-style cheese
Melts into the sauce and provides the rich, savory body of the rarebit.
Beer or ale
Thins the melted cheese and adds a malty, slightly bitter flavour.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and helps it set smoothly when gently heated.
Cornstarch
Stabilises the cheese sauce so it stays smooth and does not separate.
Sauerkraut
Adds tang and acidity that cut through the richness of the cheese.
English muffins
Provide a crisp, sturdy base that holds the sauce.

The step that matters

Temper the egg. Adding hot cheese mixture to the egg slowly, a little at a time, warms the egg gradually. Adding it all at once or cooking the egg too hot can scramble it and make the sauce grainy.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Potatoabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, beer, sauce, pepper, cheese, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

More welsh rarebit recipes

Tomato 3 See all 354 →

You might also like

Illustration of Macaroni and CheeseIllustrationMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesIllustration of Cheese MakingIllustrationCheese Making50 recipesIllustration of Cheese FrittersIllustrationCheese Fritters34 recipesIllustration of Cheese OmeletteIllustrationCheese Omelette31 recipes