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Welsh Rarebit

A hot cheese sauce made with butter, cheese, paprika, cream, and egg yolks, served on crackers or toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 rarebit

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish over hot water.

  2. Add the cheese, salt, and paprika, stirring until melted.

  3. Mix the beaten egg yolks with the cream, then add to the cheese mixture.

  4. Stir until smooth and slightly thickened, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on thin crackers, shredded wheat, granose biscuits, or toasted bread with the rarebit on the untoasted side.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the sauce to give it its body and rich savoury flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the sauce smooth and loose.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the cheese melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Stir until smooth and slightly thickened, but do not let it boil.. Egg yolks curdle and turn grainy if overheated. Gentle heat from the hot water sets them into a smooth, thickened sauce, while boiling would scramble them and can cause the cheese to separate and turn stringy.

“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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