Name: Mushroom Sandwiches
Ingredients: fresh mushrooms; butter; white bread; olives

Why it works: Mushroom and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,571 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mushroom Sandwiches

Ingredients

fresh mushrooms
butter
white bread
olives

Directions

Fry fresh mushrooms in butter and season to taste.
Once cool, mince the mushrooms finely, using the butter to moisten them.
Place the minced mushrooms between two unbuttered slices of white bread.
Serve with olives.

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.

Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,571 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).