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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese-based toast topped with a melted cheese mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cheese, butter, dry mustard, coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, egg yolks, and milk.

  2. Stir over low heat until the mixture is smoothly melted together.

Serve

  1. Pour the cheese mixture over buttered toast.

  2. For a variation, top each serving with a poached egg and a thin slice of breakfast bacon.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 rarebit.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with the cheese.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, silky texture and rich flavor in the sauce.
Milk
Thins the cheese so it pours smoothly and stays creamy as it heats.
Tomato ketchup
Adds subtle sweetness and acidity that brightens the cheese flavor.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until smoothly melted. Cheese proteins toughen and separate when overheated, and egg yolks can scramble. Gentle, steady heat keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, mustard, pepper, ketchup, sauce, egg. 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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