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Bean Rarebit

A creamy bean and cheese mixture served on toast, seasoned with salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Bean Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add salt and pepper, then add the mashed cooked beans.

  3. Mix thoroughly and gradually add the milk.

  4. Cook until blended, then add the cheese.

  5. Stir constantly until the cheese is melted.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on slices of toast with Worcestershire sauce.

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. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + beanstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together741 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

Cooked beans
Provide the bulk and body of the mixture, standing in for the cheese-and-egg base of a classic rarebit.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to add richness, savory flavor and a creamy, cohesive texture.
Milk
Loosens the bean and butter mixture into a smooth, spreadable sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and gives the base a rounded flavor when melted.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the cheese is melted. Cheese proteins tighten and turn grainy or stringy when overheated, so gentle, constant stirring over moderate heat keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Peanutfits less well
  4. Lima beansfits less well

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