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Tomato Rarebit

A savory tomato and cheese mixture cooked with eggs and mustard, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rarebit

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish and sauté the chopped onion until soft.

  2. Add the tomatoes and heat until hot.

  3. Stir in the cheese and cook until melted.

  4. Add the beaten eggs, salt, red pepper, and mustard, and cook until thick.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture over 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they cook, giving it a set, spoonable body.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and a creamy, stretchy texture.
Tomatoes
Provide the liquid base and a bright, slightly acidic flavor.
Onion
Softens in butter to add sweetness and savory depth.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the onion soften without browning.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs until thick. Beaten eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat. Cooking gently while stirring keeps them smooth; high heat can scramble them into lumps.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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