Name: Cheese and Olive Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ cup butter, softened; ½ cup soft cheese, finely scraped; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ⅓ cup chopped olives; 1 small red pepper, chopped; very thin slices of bread

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese and Olive Sandwiches

Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened
½ cup soft cheese, finely scraped
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
⅓ cup chopped olives
1 small red pepper, chopped
very thin slices of bread

Directions

Make the filling

Cream the butter in a bowl.
Mix in the soft cheese and season with salt.
Stir in the chopped olives and red pepper.

Assemble and cut

Spread the mixture between thin slices of bread.
Cut the sandwiches into fancy shapes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Softens and carries the flavours, giving the filling a creamy, spreadable texture.
Soft cheese: Adds creaminess and savoury body to the filling.
Olives: Contribute salty, briny flavour and bite to the filling.
Red pepper: Adds sweetness, colour and a fresh crunch to the filling.

“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.