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Sandwich Filling

A cheese-based sandwich filling with Brazil nuts, seasoned with salt and cayenne, spread on thin bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and brazil nut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sandwich Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the Neufchatel cheese, salt, and cayenne pepper until well combined.

  2. Add olive oil gradually until the mixture is soft enough to spread.

  3. Blanch or scrape the skin from the Brazil nuts, then chop them finely.

  4. Stir the chopped Brazil nuts into the cheese mixture.

Assemble the sandwiches

  1. Remove the crusts from whole wheat bread and cut the slices very thin.

  2. Spread the filling on the bread slices to make sandwiches.

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. Olive + brazil nuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,802 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + brazil nuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Neufchatel cheese
Provides the creamy base and body that the filling spreads on.
Olive oil
Adds fat and moisture to soften the cheese into a spreadable texture.
Brazil nuts
Contribute richness, fat, and a crunchy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Add olive oil gradually. Adding oil in small amounts lets the cheese absorb it evenly. Too much at once can make the mixture loose and greasy rather than spreadable.

Swap the brazil nut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Brazil nutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, pepper, olive. 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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