Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Welsh Rarebit
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the cheese and milk, and cook for five minutes.
Stir in the beaten egg, pepper, and salt.
Serve
Pour the mixture over the buttered toast and serve immediately.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,861 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 give it rich flavour and a thick, creamy body.
- Egg
- Thickens the cheese mixture as it sets gently, giving it body and a smooth texture.
- Milk
- Loosens the melted cheese into a smooth sauce that coats the toast.
- Butter
- Melts first to enrich the sauce with fat and help the cheese blend smoothly.
The step that matters
Stir in the beaten egg. Egg proteins thicken when heated, but too much heat can scramble them into lumps. Keep the heat gentle and stir constantly so the sauce turns smooth and glossy rather than grainy.
“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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