Name: Shrimp Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup minced shrimp; 6 chopped green olives; a little parsley; mayonnaise; salt and pepper to taste; graham bread; butter; sour pickles for serving

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Shrimp Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine minced shrimp, chopped olives, and parsley.
Moisten the mixture with mayonnaise and season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and serve

Spread the shrimp mixture between slices of buttered graham bread.
Serve immediately with sour pickles.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (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

Minced shrimp: Provides the main filling and its savory seafood flavor.
Mayonnaise: Adds moisture and fat so the shrimp mixture holds together and spreads easily.
Green olives: Add a briny, slightly acidic bite that cuts through the richness of the filling.
Graham bread: Serves as the structure that holds the filling between its slices.
Butter: Adds fat and flavor to the bread slices.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, olive, pepper, bread, butter):

Garlicfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, olive, pepper, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.