Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Welsh Rarebit
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the toast
Toast the bread slices and keep them hot.
Generously butter the hot toast and moisten with a few teaspoons of boiling water.
Make the cheese sauce
In a saucepan, heat the milk or porter over medium heat until boiling.
Add the grated cheese and stir constantly until fully dissolved.
Beat the egg yolks until creamy, then stir them rapidly into the cheese mixture.
Serve
Pour the cheese mixture immediately over the hot toast and serve quickly.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grated cheese
- Melts into the sauce to provide the main flavour and creamy body.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the cheese sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
- Milk or porter
- Liquid base that loosens the cheese so it melts smoothly into a sauce.
- Bread slices
- Provide the crisp, absorbent base that holds the hot cheese topping.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the toast and helps keep it from soaking up too much sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring the yolks into the cheese mixture. Adding yolks to very hot sauce can scramble them. Stirring them in rapidly and keeping the heat moderate lets them thicken the sauce smoothly.
“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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