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Tomato Rarebit

A tomato-based cheese sauce served hot over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Tomato Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish or double boiler.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk and cook until thick.

  4. Add the tomatoes mixed with baking soda and stir until smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Incorporate the cheese, eggs, and seasonings, and stir until the cheese is melted.

  2. Serve immediately on brown bread toast or wafers.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 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

Butter
Enriches the base and carries the flour into a smooth roux.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it coats the toast rather than running off.
Cheese
Provides the main flavour and melts into the sauce to give richness.
Eggs
Add body and help the sauce set and hold together as it cools.
Tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and colour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the cheese and stir until melted. Cheese turns stringy or grainy if it is overheated or boiled. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring steadily lets the cheese melt evenly into the sauce. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can also scramble.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, cheese, egg, mustard):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cheese, egg, mustard. 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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