Skip to main content
Main

Welsh Rarebit

A cheese and ale sauce served over toast, optionally topped with poached eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare

  1. Cut the cheese into small pieces.

  2. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the cheese and ale, stirring until the cheese is completely melted.

  2. Stir in the dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and Cayenne pepper.

Serve

  1. Prepare a hot plate with the softened toast.

  2. Pour the cheese mixture over the toast.

  3. Optional: Poach two eggs and place on top before serving.

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. Cheese + buttertop 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. Cheese + mustardtop 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

Crumbly cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich sauce that forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the cheese melt smoothly into a silky sauce.
Milk or ale
Liquid that loosens the melted cheese into a pourable sauce with a softer texture.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the cheese.
Toast
Provides a crisp, sturdy base that holds the warm cheese sauce.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese gently. High heat makes cheese proteins tighten and squeeze out fat, so the sauce turns grainy and oily. Medium heat and steady stirring keep it smooth and cohesive.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

More welsh rarebit recipes

Tomato 3 See all 354 →

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes