Name: Sandwich Fillings
Ingredients: ½ cup English walnut meats, chopped; 2 stalks celery, chopped; 4 ounces cream cheese; 2 tablespoons mayonnaise; ½ pound butter, softened; juice of 1 lemon; 4 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped; slices of bread

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sandwich Fillings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the walnuts and celery finely.

Make the fillings

Mix the walnuts, celery, cream cheese, and mayonnaise in a bowl.
In another bowl, mix the softened butter, lemon juice, and parsley.

Assemble

Spread the walnut mixture on thin slices of bread.
Then spread the butter mixture on top.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese: Adds creamy body and moisture that binds the walnut and celery mixture together.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, helping the walnut and celery mixture hold together and spread smoothly.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and softens the bread-facing layer for easy spreading.
Walnut meats: Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft fillings.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly vegetal bite.

“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.