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Cheese, Toasted, or Scotch Rare-bit

A toasted cheese dish served with mustard, pepper, optional butter, and optional porter or port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cheese, Toasted, or Scotch Rare-bit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cheese into thin slices.

Make the cheese

  1. Melt the cheese in a cheese toaster on a hot plate or over steam.

  2. Add mixed mustard and pepper, stirring until completely dissolved.

  3. Fill the bottom of the cheese toaster with hot water.

Brown and serve

  1. Brown the cheese before the fire or with a salamander.

  2. Serve with dry or buttered 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. 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. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cheese + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Rich cheese
Melts into a smooth sauce and provides the main flavour and richness.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the melted cheese.
Toast
Provides a crisp base that holds the melted cheese topping.
Porter or port wine
Optional liquid that adds depth and a hint of sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese gently. Cheese heated too fast or too hot turns grainy and oily because its proteins tighten and fat separates. Gentle heat over steam or hot water keeps the mixture smooth and stretchy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, pepper, butter, port wine. 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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