Skip to main content
Main

A Welsh Rarebit for Four

A cheese sauce made with American cheese, butter, pepper, served hot over dry toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

A Welsh Rarebit for Four

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan over high heat, stir the cheese until it is completely melted and free from lumps.

  2. Add the butter and pepper, stirring until combined.

Serve

  1. Serve the cheese mixture hot over slices of dry toast.

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. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft american cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy sauce that carries the dish's flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the melted cheese smoother and silkier.
Dry toast
Provides a crisp base that holds the hot cheese sauce.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese over high heat. Cheese proteins tighten and turn grainy or oily when overheated, so the cheese should melt steadily and be stirred until smooth and free of lumps.

“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