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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese-based sauce served hot over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, beat the egg and add the grated cheese.

  2. Pour in the beer and mix well.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs, cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and grated onion juice.

  4. Cook over low heat until the cheese melts and the mixture is smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve hot over toast.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone (spice).

  3. Cheese + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

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

  4. Beer + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together940 recipes

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

  5. Beer + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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 its rich, savoury body.
Beer
Thins the cheese so it stays fluid and smooth when heated.
Eggs
Help thicken and bind the sauce as they heat.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat until the cheese melts and the mixture is smooth. High heat can make cheese turn stringy or grainy, and the egg can scramble. Gentle heat lets the cheese melt evenly and the eggs thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cheese, beer, 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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