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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with mustard, salt, cayenne, egg, and butter, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Grate the cheese and place it in a double boiler with the cream or milk.

  2. While the cheese is heating, make some toast.

  3. In a bowl, mix the mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper, then add the egg and beat well.

  4. Once the cheese has melted, stir in the egg mixture and butter, cooking for about two minutes without letting it curdle.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the hot toast and serve immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a smooth sauce that forms the body of the dish.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it gently cooks, giving it a creamy body.
Cream or milk
Loosens the melting cheese so it becomes smooth and pourable.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy flavour that balances the rich cheese.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy, smooth texture and rich flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg mixture gently over low heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the sauce gets too hot or is cooked too fast it can curdle and turn grainy. Keeping the heat low and stirring steadily lets the egg thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, cream, pepper, butter, egg. 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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