Skip to main content
Main

Welch Rarebit

A cheese-based sauce made with butter, mild fresh cheese, egg, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and warm beer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welch Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the cheese pieces and cover until melted, stirring with a fork until it reaches a molasses-like consistency.

  3. In a bowl, beat together the egg, mustard, salt, and cayenne.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the melted cheese.

  5. Finally, add the warm beer and mix well.

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

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cheese + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone (spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mild fresh cheese
Melts into the sauce and provides the main body and flavor.
Egg
Helps bind the sauce and thicken it as it sets.
Warm beer
Thins the cheese mixture and adds a light malty aroma.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the cheese melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg into the melted cheese. Adding the egg mixture to hot cheese can scramble it or cause graininess if the heat is too high. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring steadily helps the egg blend in smoothly and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, egg, pepper, beer. 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

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes