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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with American cheese, egg yolk, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and spices, served over toast or biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter 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 Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, melt a few small lumps of butter over low heat.

  2. Add the chopped cheese and stir constantly until well blended.

  3. In a cup, combine the egg yolk, dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce, red and black pepper, and Tabasco sauce.

  4. Stir this mixture into the cheese and heat for one more minute.

Serve

  1. Pour the cheese mixture over toast or toasted biscuits.

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

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 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. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

American cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy sauce that forms the body of the rarebit.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cheese sauce and adds richness as it heats.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the cheese melt smoothly without seizing.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, savory depth that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture into the cheese. Egg yolk thickens when heated, so it should be added to the melted cheese over low heat and stirred well. Excess heat can scramble the yolk and make the sauce grainy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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