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Welsh Rarebit

A toasted bread topped with a spicy cheese mixture, baked until melted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Grate the cheese and mix in Cayenne pepper.

  2. Fry the bread slices in butter on one side until golden.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread a thick layer of cheese on the fried side of the bread.

  2. Place the slices in a baking pan and bake in a warm oven (about 400°F or 200°C) until the cheese begins to melt.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Gruyere cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Gruyere cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a creamy, savoury topping that sets as it cools.
Bread
Provides a sturdy base that holds the topping and browns when fried.
Butter
Fries the bread to a golden colour and adds richness.

The step that matters

Baking until the cheese just begins to melt. Cheese turns greasy and stringy when overheated, and the proteins tighten and squeeze out fat. Stopping as soon as it starts to melt keeps the topping smooth and creamy.

“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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