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Welsh Rare-bit — No. 1

A Welsh cheese toast made with melted cheese, mustard, butter, and milk, served hot on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Rare-bit — No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cut or grate the cheese.

  2. In a frying pan, melt the butter and add the cheese and mustard. Stir until smooth, adding milk as needed.

Serve

  1. Once hot and smooth, spread the mixture on toasted bread.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + breadtop 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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Good cheese
Melts into the sauce and provides the main rich, savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the cheese melt smoothly and gives a rich texture.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese.
Milk
Loosens the melted cheese so it becomes smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese gently. High heat can make cheese seize, turn grainy, or separate into oil and solids. Melting slowly over moderate heat, with a little milk, keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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