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Welch Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with ale, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and American cheese, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Welch Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rarebit

  1. In a chafing dish, mix the ale, Worcestershire sauce, and dry English mustard.

  2. Add the American cheese and season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Place over the flame and stir until the cheese begins to melt.

  4. Continue stirring until the mixture is smooth and comes to a boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over toast, dry or buttered, as preferred.

  2. Optionally, add the yolk of an egg just before serving.

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

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

  2. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

American cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy sauce that coats the toast.
Ale
Thins the melted cheese and adds a malty, slightly bitter flavour.
Dry english mustard
Adds sharp heat that balances the richness of the cheese.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and tang to the cheese sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until smooth and just boiling. Cheese can turn grainy or stringy if it overheats or boils hard, since high heat squeezes out its fat and proteins. Stirring over moderate heat keeps the sauce smooth and cohesive.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, 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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