Name: Walnut Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 pound English walnuts; ⅔ pound butter; salt to taste; thin, crusty biscuits

Why it works: Walnut and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Walnut Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 pound English walnuts
⅔ pound butter
salt to taste
thin, crusty biscuits

Directions

Remove the meat from the walnuts and mash them into a paste.
Mix in two-thirds as much butter as the walnut paste and add salt to taste.
Spread the mixture between thin, crusty biscuits.

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.

Walnut + biscuittop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,009 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

English walnuts: Provide the main body and rich, nutty flavor of the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and moisture, binding the mashed walnuts into a spreadable paste.