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Tomato Rarebit

A tomato-based cheese sauce made with flour, butter, milk, and eggs, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomato Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.

Add the cheese and seasoning

  1. Add the baking soda and stir in the tomato.

  2. Mix in the grated cheese until melted.

  3. Beat the egg slightly and add it along with the mustard, salt, and pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour into a serving dish and sprinkle with paprika.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth roux-based sauce.
Butter
Carries fat into the roux, giving the sauce a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a creamy sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to add savoury flavour and body.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the sauce as its proteins set with heat.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the sauce, which softens the tomato's acidity and helps the cheese melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding it to a very hot sauce can make it curdle or turn grainy. Stir it in gently, with the sauce off or on low heat, so the egg thickens the sauce evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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