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Bean Rarebit

A baked bean and cheese mixture served on 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 ↓

Bean Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the salt and paprika, then the pressed baked beans.

  3. Heat the mixture thoroughly.

  4. Gradually add the milk and blend with the other ingredients.

  5. Stir in the soft cheese and Worcestershire sauce.

  6. Stir constantly until the cheese is melted.

Serve

  1. Serve on zephyrettes.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beans + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together741 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce 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

Baked beans
Pressed smooth, they form the thick base that the cheese is blended into.
Soft cheese
Melts into the sauce, giving it its rich, creamy body and flavour.
Milk
Added gradually to loosen the mixture into a smooth, spreadable sauce.
Butter
Melted first to add fat, richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the cheese is melted. Cheese proteins can turn stringy, grainy or oily if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the emulsion smooth and the sauce glossy.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, cheese, sauce. 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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