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Welsh Rabbit

A toasted bread topped with melted cheese and ale, seasoned with pepper, salt, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cheese into thin slices.

  2. Place the cheese in a saucer or tin with the ale and heat it in the oven until melted.

Assemble and serve

  1. Toast the bread and place it on a hot dish.

  2. Pour the melted cheese over the bread, ensuring it is well covered.

  3. Sprinkle lightly with pepper and coarse sea salt, and add mustard to taste.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 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. Bread + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 coats the bread and carries the flavour.
Ale
Thins the melting cheese and adds a light, malty flavour.
Bread
Provides a crisp, toasted base that holds the melted cheese.

The step that matters

Heat the cheese until just melted. Cheese turns stringy, oily or grainy if overheated, so it should be heated gently only until it melts and becomes smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, bread, pepper. 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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