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Welch Rarebit

A cheese and egg mixture served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welch Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rarebit

  1. In a small frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the cheese slices and cook for about 5 minutes until melted.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs, mustard, and pepper until well combined.

Serve

  1. Prepare slices of buttered toast.

  2. Pour the cheese mixture over the toast and serve immediately while 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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Cheese
Melts into a rich, smooth sauce that forms the body of the dish.
Eggs
Thicken the cheese mixture as they set, giving it a creamy, spoonable texture.
Butter
Melts with the cheese to add fat and a silky mouthfeel.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs gently over the heat. Eggs set when heated, so if the mixture gets too hot or is stirred too vigorously after adding them, it can scramble or turn grainy instead of staying smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, butter, 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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