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Toasted Cheese or Welsh Rabbit

A toasted bread sandwich with melted cheese, mustard, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Toasted Cheese or Welsh Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the toast

  1. Cut the bread into ½ inch thick slices and remove the crust.

  2. Toast the bread slightly and spread with butter.

Make the cheese topping

  1. Melt the cheese in a bowl or over steam.

  2. Add a small quantity of mixed mustard and season with pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the melted cheese over the toast.

  2. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 2 minutes.

  3. 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

Bread
Provides the sturdy base that holds the melted cheese topping.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the toast brown lightly while keeping it moist.
Good rich cheese
Melts into a creamy, savoury topping that gives the dish its main flavour.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese gently. Cheese melts smoothly at low, even heat. Strong heat can make it oily or grainy and cause it to separate, so melt it in a bowl or over steam rather than in a hot pan.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, cheese, 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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