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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese topping on toasted bread flavored with mustard, butter, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the topping

  1. Mix the mustard with the butter on a plate in front of the fire until creamy.

  2. Add the cayenne pepper and mix well.

Assemble and melt

  1. Butter the toasted bread and place half the cheese on it.

  2. Pour half the seasoned butter over the cheese, then add the remaining cheese and butter.

  3. Place the dish in a Dutch oven in front of the fire until the cheese is melted, then 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 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

Double gloucester cheese
Melts into a smooth, stretchy sauce that forms the body of the rarebit.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cheese melt smoothly and spread evenly.
Unmade mustard
Adds sharp, savoury flavour that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.
Toasted bread
Provides a crisp base that holds the melted cheese topping.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese in front of the fire. Cheese turns stringy, oily or grainy when it overheats or heats too fast. Gentle, even heat lets the fat and proteins melt together into a smooth sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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