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Welsh Rarebit

A savory cheese sauce made with butter, cream cheese, cayenne pepper, mustard, water, and egg yolks, served on crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,747 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the cream cheese and stir until melted.

  3. Mix in cayenne pepper to taste.

  4. In a cup, mix the dry mustard with a little cold water until smooth. Add boiling water to the mustard mixture until the cup is half full.

  5. Pour the mustard mixture into the melted cheese to thin it.

  6. Stir for a few minutes until well mixed.

  7. Add the beaten egg yolks and stir for a few more minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on hot 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 + cream cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + cream cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 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

Cream cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich base that gives the rarebit its body and flavor.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the melted cheese as they heat, giving it a creamier, more set texture.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy bite that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the cheese is too hot they can scramble or turn grainy. Stir them in gently over moderate heat and keep stirring so they blend evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, butter, cream cheese, pepper, 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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