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Welsh Rabbit

A baked cheese and egg custard with bread or biscuit crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Pour boiling milk over grated cheese and stir until dissolved and smooth.

  2. When cool, add beaten eggs and the crumbed biscuit or bread.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Bake until light brown.

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

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

  2. Cheese + biscuittop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Milk + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + biscuittop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,643 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the milk to give the rabbit its rich flavour and smooth body.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the dish a firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that melts the cheese and gives a creamy texture.
Biscuit or bread
Soaks up liquid and adds body so the mixture holds together when baked.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs when the milk has cooled. Eggs scramble and curdle in very hot liquid. Letting the cheese and milk cool slightly before adding beaten eggs lets them thicken smoothly when baked instead of turning grainy.

“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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