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A Welsh Rabbit

A cheese toast with Gloucester cheese, mustard, salt, and pepper, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Welsh Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter one side of the round of bread.

  2. Toast the unbuttered side of a slice of Gloucester cheese until golden.

  3. Place the toasted side of the cheese on the buttered bread.

Toast and serve

  1. Toast the top with a salamander or hot iron until the cheese melts and spreads.

  2. Rub made mustard, salt, and pepper over the melted cheese.

  3. Serve immediately in a double dish with hot water underneath, and cover.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 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. 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

Gloucester cheese
Melts into a smooth, spreadable topping that forms the body of the dish.
Bread
Provides a crisp, sturdy base that holds the melted cheese.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the bread brown and gives a richer flavour.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness that cuts through the richness of the melted cheese.

The step that matters

Toast the top until the cheese melts and spreads. Cheese that is heated too gently stays stiff and does not spread, while overheating makes it oily and tough. Watching for a smooth, melted surface gives an even topping.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cheese, butter, 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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