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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese and ale sauce served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix butter, salt, cayenne, and ale, and heat until just before boiling.

  2. Add the finely cut cheese and stir briskly until melted and smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve on bread toasted on one side only.

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. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 give it body, richness, and its characteristic savoury flavour.
Ale
Thins the melted cheese into a smooth liquid and adds a slightly bitter, malty flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky texture and helps the cheese melt smoothly without clumping.

The step that matters

Stir the cheese in off the heat's peak. Cheese turns grainy and oily if it overheats or boils, because its proteins tighten and fat separates. Keep the mixture just below boiling and stir briskly until smooth.

“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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