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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese-based sauce served over dry toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,950 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the cheese

  1. Cut the cheese into small pieces.

  2. Add water and stir over medium heat until the cheese melts.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix in mustard, olive oil, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Pour the mixture over hot, crisp dry toast.

  3. Serve immediately in a covered dish.

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. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,802 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

New cheese
Melts into the sauce and provides most of the richness and savory flavor.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the cheese.
Olive oil
Adds fat that keeps the melted sauce smooth and glossy.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese over medium heat. High heat can make cheese tight, grainy, or oily as its proteins seize and its fat separates. Gentle, steady heat with stirring lets the cheese melt evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, olive, 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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