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A Scotch Rarebit

A Scotch Rarebit is a savory sauce of butter, flour, anchovy paste, milk, and eggs served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

A Scotch Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook until it bubbles.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth.

  4. Mix in the anchovy paste and cayenne.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped eggs and simmer for 3 minutes.

  2. Serve the mixture over 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and flavour to the base.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and substance, becoming part of the thickened mixture.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savoury depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour disperse evenly, preventing lumps in the sauce.

“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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