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Welsh Rarebit

A savory cheese sauce made with cream cheese, butter, egg, milk or cream, seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper, and mustard, served on toast or wafers.

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

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the cream cheese into small pieces and melt it in a chafing dish with the butter.

  2. When nearly melted and smooth, add the beaten egg and stir until well mixed.

  3. Add the milk or cream and cook, stirring constantly, until smooth and at the right consistency.

  4. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, and mustard, then serve on toast or wafers.

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. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Cream cheese + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich base that forms the body of the sauce.
Egg
Thickens the cheese mixture as it cooks and helps bind it together.
Milk or cream
Loosens the melted cheese to a smooth, pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the egg to the melted cheese. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the cheese is too hot when the egg goes in, the mixture can curdle or turn grainy. Adding it once the cheese is nearly melted and stirring well keeps it smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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