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Welsh Rarebit

A melted cheese sauce with mustard, cayenne, and egg, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the cheese and cream or milk in a double boiler.

  2. Mix the mustard, salt, and cayenne in a separate bowl.

  3. Add the egg to the dry mixture and beat well.

  4. Stir in the dry mixture and the egg.

  5. Add the butter.

  6. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the toast.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 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

Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and provides the main flavour and body.
Cream or milk
Loosens the melted cheese into a smooth, pourable sauce.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it cooks and helps it set.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Egg proteins can scramble if the heat is too high or the mixture is left unstirred. Gentle, constant stirring over the double boiler keeps the sauce smooth and lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, cream, egg, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, cream, egg, butter. 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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