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Welsh Rarebit

A savory cheese sauce made with butter, cream, cheese, mustard, flour, salt, cayenne pepper, eggs, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter and cream over medium heat.

  2. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

  3. Mix in the mustard, flour, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs and cook until smooth.

  5. Finally, add the Worcestershire sauce 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Cheese
Melts into the sauce to provide rich flavor and body.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they set when gently heated, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, keeping the cheese sauce smooth and spreadable.
Flour
Helps stabilize the sauce so it stays smooth and does not separate.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs and cook until smooth. Eggs can scramble if the sauce is too hot or they are added too quickly. Heating them gently while stirring lets them thicken the sauce evenly without curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, cheese, flour, pepper, egg, sauce. 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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