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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese toast made with tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and American cheese, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread 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 Rarebit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan or chafing dish, combine the tomato catsup, Worcestershire sauce, and chopped cheese.

  2. Add the salt, red pepper, and water.

  3. Place over heat and stir rapidly until smooth.

Serve

  1. Pour immediately over toasted bread and serve.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 the smooth, rich body that forms the sauce.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the richness of the cheese.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth that rounds out the cheese flavor.

The step that matters

Stir rapidly over heat until smooth. Cheese proteins and fats can separate or turn grainy and stringy if they overheat or sit too long on the heat. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and lets the cheese melt into a uniform sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, cheese, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, pepper, bread. 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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