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Irish Rabbit or Rarebit

A cheese toast made with cheddar or Cheshire cheese, butter, milk, pickled gherkin, vinegar, mustard, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Irish Rabbit or Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine butter, milk, and cheese cut into small pieces.

  2. Stir over low heat until the mixture becomes creamy.

  3. Add vinegar, mustard, and pepper to taste, then stir in the gherkin.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare squares of hot, well-buttered toast.

  2. Pour the cheese mixture over the toast and serve immediately.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cheddar cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,436 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Cheddar cheese + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a creamy sauce that gives the dish its main flavour and body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cheese melt smoothly into a creamy mixture.
Milk
Thins the melting cheese so it becomes a spreadable, creamy sauce.
Pickled gherkin
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until creamy. Cheese proteins toughen and the fat separates if it gets too hot, leaving a grainy or oily sauce instead of a smooth one. Gentle heat and steady stirring keep it emulsified.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

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