Why it works: Swiss cheese and cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 65 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓
Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients
Directions
Cut American or Swiss cheese into thin slices.
Spread a thin layer of French mustard on the cheese.
Place the cheese between slices of buttered graham or rye bread.
Mix grated cheese with coarse sea salt, paprika, and a little cream or butter.
Spread the mixture between slices of brown, graham, or white bread or on crackers.
Rub Neufchatel cheese to a paste with cream and spread between thin slices of brown bread.
Mix grated cheese and anchovies with coarse sea salt, paprika, and a little vinegar.
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.
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Swiss cheese + cheesetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together65 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Mustard + ryetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together35 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,805 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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