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Tomato Rarebit

A tomato-based cheese sauce served hot over toast or wafers.

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.

  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

Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour into the roux-style sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by forming a starch-based structure with the melted butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks.
Stewed and strained tomatoes
Provide acidity and tomato flavour to the sauce.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the sauce as they set with heat.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to give the rarebit its savoury body and flavour.

The step that matters

Add the tomatoes mixed with baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the tomato acid and can cause foaming and a change in flavour, so it should be stirred in evenly to keep the sauce smooth.

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.

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