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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast the bread slices until golden brown.

  2. Butter the hot toast and arrange on a platter, keeping warm in the oven.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until boiling.

  2. Add the grated cheese to the boiling milk, stirring continuously until melted.

  3. Mix the dry mustard, salt, and cayenne into the cheese mixture.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs until well combined.

Serve

  1. Pour the cheese mixture over the toasted bread and serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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

Salt-rising bread
Forms the base that holds the melted cheese topping.
American cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich sauce that gives the dish its main flavor.
Eggs
Thicken the cheese sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it body.
Milk
Loosens the melted cheese so it spreads into a smooth, pourable sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the toast brown and taste savory.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs into the cheese mixture. Eggs can curdle or scramble if the sauce is too hot. Keep the heat gentle, and stir the beaten eggs in steadily so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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