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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with butter, cheese, paprika, cream, and egg yolks, served hot over crackers or bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the cheese, salt, and paprika, stirring until melted.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten egg yolks with the cream.

  4. Gradually add the egg mixture to the cheese, stirring until smooth and slightly thickened.

  5. Do not allow the mixture to boil; if necessary, cook over hot water.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on thin crackers, shredded wheat, granose biscuits, or toasted bread.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cheese
Melts into the sauce to give it body and rich flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently set and keep it smooth.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the sauce stay silky.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the cheese melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture boil. Egg yolks can curdle and turn grainy when they get too hot. Adding them gradually to warm cheese and gently heating keeps the sauce smooth and slightly thickened.

“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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