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Welsh Rarebit

A melted cheese sauce with butter, mustard, and cayenne, served over toast or salt wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 rarebit

  1. Place the grated cheese in a double boiler or chafing dish.

  2. Sprinkle over the mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the butter in pieces and pour in the milk.

  4. When the cheese is melted, stir in the well-beaten egg.

  5. Cook for a moment until heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on dry toast or salt wafers.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 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 a smooth sauce that gives the rarebit its body and flavor.
Egg
Thickens the cheese sauce as it heats and adds richness.
Milk
Thins the melted cheese into a pourable sauce and keeps it creamy.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth texture and silky mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg gently over low heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding it to very hot or boiling cheese can make it curdle or grainy. Keeping the heat gentle and the egg well beaten lets it thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, milk, egg, 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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