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A Swiss Welsh Rarebit

A cheese and egg mixture served on toast or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

A Swiss Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rarebit

  1. Melt the butter and grated cheese over boiling water.

  2. Stir in the eggs and cook until thick.

  3. Season with salt and red pepper or paprika.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast or crackers.

  2. If too thick, thin with beer or milk.

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

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

  3. Butter + beertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pepper + beertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together940 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Gruyere cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy sauce and gives the rarebit its rich, nutty flavor.
Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the cheese mixture into a spoonable sauce.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the melted cheese smooth and glossy rather than grainy.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs and cook until thick. Eggs thicken through gentle heat. If the pan is too hot or the mixture is cooked too fast, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy. Keep the heat low and stir constantly.

“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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