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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with cheese, sweet cream, mustard, paprika, salt, Worcestershire sauce, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Break the cheese into pieces and place in a saucepan.

  2. Add sweet cream, French mustard, paprika, salt, and Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Heat over low fire, stirring until the cheese melts.

Serve

  1. Pour the cheese mixture over the squares of toast.

  2. 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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the sauce, providing the main body, richness and savory flavor.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and smoothness so the melted cheese stays fluid and spreadable.
French mustard
Adds sharp tang that balances the richness of the cheese.
Worcestershire sauce
Contributes savory depth and a touch of acidity to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat over low fire, stirring until the cheese melts. High heat or lack of stirring can overheat the cheese proteins, causing them to tighten and separate, leaving a grainy or oily sauce instead of a smooth one.

“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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