Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Rarebit

A savory tomato and cheese sauce served hot over toast or wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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.

  2. Stir until the cheese is melted and 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Cheese
Provides the rich flavor and melting body that defines the rarebit.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken the sauce as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps form the flour base.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic tomatoes, neutralizing acidity and altering their flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the tomato and baking soda mixture until smooth. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the tomatoes, producing gas and softening their taste. Stirring until smooth keeps the sauce even and prevents lumps or pockets of soda.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes