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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce with mustard, cayenne, egg, butter, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare

  1. Break the cheese into small pieces or grate it if hard.

  2. Put the cheese and milk in a double boiler.

  3. Toast the bread and keep it hot.

  4. Mix the mustard, salt, and cayenne; add the egg and beat well.

Make the rarebit

  1. When the cheese is melted, stir in the egg and butter, cooking for 2 minutes until it thickens slightly, but do not let it curdle.

  2. Pour the mixture over the 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Cream cheese + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rich cream cheese
Melts into a smooth sauce that gives the rarebit its body and rich flavour.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it heats, helping it set into a spoonable coating.
Cream or milk
Loosens the melted cheese so it spreads evenly rather than becoming stiff.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the cheese.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy finish and a smoother, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg without letting it curdle. Egg proteins set with gentle heat. If the sauce gets too hot or cooks too fast, the egg curdles and turns grainy, so keep the heat low in the double boiler and stir steadily.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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