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Welsh Rare-bit

A Welsh cheese toast made with milk, bread, cheese, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rare-bit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cut the bread into even slices.

  3. Grate the cheese.

  4. Beat the egg yolk and white together.

  5. Mix the flour with a little milk to form a paste.

  6. Toast the bread slices.

Cook and assemble

  1. Pour the flour mixture into the hot milk and stir until thickened.

  2. Pound the crust of the toast and place it in a warm dish.

  3. Add the beaten egg and grated cheese to the thickened milk.

  4. Once the cheese is melted, pour the mixture over each slice of toast.

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. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which flour thickens.
Flour
Its starch thickens the hot milk into a smooth sauce.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and helps it set as it cooks.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Bread
Forms the base that the cheese sauce is poured over.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the hot milk. Flour starch thickens as it heats, so stirring constantly while pouring prevents lumps and keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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