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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with butter, cheese, egg yolk, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and ale, served hot over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese 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 Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish or double boiler.

  2. Add the cheese and stir until smooth.

  3. Mix in the egg yolk, dry mustard, and Worcestershire sauce.

  4. Stir well, then add the ale or beer and mix thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture hot over toast and serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cheese + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone (spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mild cheese
Melts into the sauce to provide the main body, richness and savory flavor.
Egg yolk
Acts as an emulsifier and thickener, helping the sauce set smooth and creamy when heated.
Ale or beer
Thins the melted cheese into a pourable sauce and adds a slightly bitter, malty flavor.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Add the cheese and stir until smooth. Cheese proteins tighten and turn grainy or stringy when overheated, so the cheese should melt gently over low heat with constant stirring to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

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