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Welsh Rare-bit

A hot cheese and milk topping served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rare-bit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cut the bread into even slices.

  3. Grate the cheese.

  4. Beat the egg yolk and white together.

  5. Mix the flour with a little milk to form a paste.

  6. Toast the bread slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Pour the flour mixture into the hot milk and stir until thickened.

  2. Pound the crust of the toasted bread and place it in a warm dish.

  3. Add the beaten egg and grated cheese to the thickened milk.

  4. Once the cheese is melted, pour the mixture over each slice of 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. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats the toast.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to give it its rich flavor and body.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it sets and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds its shape on the toast.

The step that matters

Pour the flour mixture into the hot milk and stir until thickened. Flour starch must be stirred into hot liquid so it swells evenly; adding it lumpy or without stirring leaves clumps and an uneven 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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