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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with grated cheese, egg, mustard, salt, cayenne, and ale or milk, served over hot toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rarebit

  1. In a chafing dish, combine the grated cheese and ale slowly.

  2. Beat the egg with mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. When the cheese is almost melted, stir in the egg mixture. Continue stirring until the cheese is smooth and creamy.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on hot 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 and provides the main body and rich flavour.
Egg
Thickens the cheese mixture as it gently cooks, giving it a creamy texture.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese.
Ale
Thins the melted cheese and adds a malty flavour while keeping it smooth.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg into the cheese. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the cheese is too hot or the egg is added too fast, the sauce can curdle or turn grainy. Adding the egg mixture once the cheese is nearly melted and stirring steadily keeps it smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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