Name: Club Sandwiches
Ingredients: bread; mayonnaise dressing; lettuce leaves; thin slices of cold chicken (white meat); slices of broiled bacon

Why it works: Chicken and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,449 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Club Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the bread into triangles and toast until light brown.
Spread mayonnaise dressing on one side of each triangle.
Place a lettuce leaf on one triangle, then add thin slices of cold chicken on top.
Layer slices of broiled bacon over the chicken, then add another lettuce leaf.
Top with the second triangle of toast, mayonnaise side down.
Trim the edges neatly and arrange on a plate.

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.

Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Bread + chickentop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,421 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).