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Welsh Rabbit

A cheese and beer mixture served over toast or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, combine the diced cheese, butter, and beer or milk.

  2. Add Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, and cayenne pepper or paprika, and blend thoroughly.

  3. Stir constantly while adding more beer or milk as needed to achieve a smooth, creamy consistency.

Serve

  1. Once creamy, pour the mixture over prepared hot toast or crackers and serve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Beer + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cheese + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone (spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft american cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy sauce that forms the body of the dish.
Beer or ale
Thins the melting cheese and adds a slightly bitter, malty flavor.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and tang that balances the richness of the cheese.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the fat of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while adding more beer or milk as needed. Cheese proteins tighten and can turn grainy or oily when overheated or left unstirred. Gentle constant stirring and adding liquid gradually keeps the emulsion smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Potatofits less well

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