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Cheese Sandwiches

A sandwich spread made from mashed hard‑boiled egg, grated cheese, and seasonings, served on buttered white bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mash the yolk of the hard boiled egg in a bowl.

  2. Add melted butter and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in salt, sugar, pepper, mustard, and grated cheese until well combined.

  4. Add vinegar to achieve a spreadable thickness.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture on slices of buttered white bread.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Its fat and emulsifying lecithin help bind the filling into a smooth, creamy paste.
Grated cheese
Adds fat, savoury flavour and body, and helps the filling hold together.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, making the mashed yolk smooth and spreadable.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and adjusts the filling's spreadable thickness.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the egg and cheese.

The step that matters

Add vinegar to achieve a spreadable thickness. Vinegar's acidity sharpens flavour and changes how the thick yolk-cheese mixture feels. Adding it gradually and tasting helps you reach a spreadable texture without making the filling runny or sour.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cheese, pepper, sugar, butter, vinegar, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cheese, pepper, sugar, butter, vinegar, bread. 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.

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