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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with American cheese, butter, mustard, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, beer, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the butter, dry mustard, cayenne pepper, Lea & Perrins' Sauce, and beer in a chafing dish. Melt the butter over low heat.

Melt the cheese

  1. Add the cheese, cut into small dice or grate, and stir continuously. If needed, add a little more beer to achieve a creamy consistency.

  2. Once the cheese is melted and creamy, serve immediately over the 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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 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. Mustard + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soft american cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy sauce that coats the toast.
Beer
Thins the melted cheese and keeps it creamy rather than stringy or greasy.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the cheese melt smoothly and gives the sauce richness.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese over low heat. High heat makes cheese proteins tighten and squeeze out fat, so the sauce turns grainy or oily. Low, gentle heat with constant stirring keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, pepper, sauce, beer. 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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