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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce with butter, mustard, cayenne, ale or milk, and eggs, served hot over toast or crackers.

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

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rarebit

  1. Melt the butter in a double boiler.

  2. Add the cheese, mustard, and cayenne pepper, stirring constantly.

  3. Slowly mix in the ale, beer, or milk until smooth.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs.

Serve

  1. Serve hot over toast or toasted soda crackers.

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. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich sauce that gives the rarebit its body and flavour.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they set gently, giving it a creamier texture.
Ale, beer, or milk
Thins the cheese into a smooth, pourable sauce while adding moisture.
Butter
Melts first to coat the pan and add richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs. Eggs thicken when heated gently, but if the sauce is too hot they can scramble. Keep the heat low in the double boiler and stir steadily.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Almondfits less well
  4. Sesamefits less well

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