Name: Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter; ½ tablespoon finely chopped cold boiled ham; ½ tablespoon finely chopped cold boiled chicken; coarse sea salt, to taste; paprika, to taste; Gruyere cheese, sliced thin

Why it works: Butter and gruyere cheese work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 323 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter
½ tablespoon finely chopped cold boiled ham
½ tablespoon finely chopped cold boiled chicken
coarse sea salt, to taste
paprika, to taste
Gruyere cheese, sliced thin

Directions

Cream the butter in a bowl.
Add the chopped ham and chicken, then season with salt and paprika.
Spread the mixture between slices of thinly cut Gruyere cheese.

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.

Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together323 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,497 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Chicken + gruyere cheesetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together51 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat and richness, and softens into a spreadable base for the filling.
Cold boiled ham: Provides savory, salty flavor and meaty texture to the filling.
Cold boiled chicken: Adds mild savory flavor and bulk to the filling.
Gruyere cheese: Forms the outer slices that hold the filling and adds nutty, salty flavor.

“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.