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Welsh Rarebit

A savory cheese sauce made with ale, cheese, egg, mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper, served hot over toast or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the ale in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Cut the cheese into small pieces.

  3. Beat the egg and add it to the cheese along with the mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Pour the cheese mixture into the boiling ale, stirring constantly until smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately on toast or crackers.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the ale to form the smooth, rich body of the sauce.
Ale
Liquid base that melts the cheese and adds a malty, slightly acidic flavour.
Egg
Adds richness and helps thicken the sauce as it sets.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Pour the cheese mixture into the boiling ale, stirring constantly until smooth.. Cheese proteins can seize and turn grainy or stringy if overheated or added too quickly. Constant stirring keeps the cheese emulsified and evenly distributed, producing a smooth sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, pepper. 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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