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Welsh Rare-bit, American Style

A cheese sauce made with Welsh Rarebit cheese, port or sherry, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper, butter, and egg, served over buttered toast.

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

Welsh Rare-bit, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped cheese, port or sherry, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper, and butter.

  2. Place the saucepan over medium heat and stir until the cheese is melted.

  3. Add the beaten egg and continue stirring until the egg is set.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over hot buttered toast and serve immediately.

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. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cheese + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

American cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich sauce that forms the body of the rarebit.
Egg
Sets when heated, thickening the cheese mixture so it clings to the toast.
Old port or brown sherry
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor while thinning the melted cheese.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and can scramble if the mixture is too hot or left unstirred. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the egg thickens the sauce smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, sherry, sauce, pepper, butter, egg. 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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