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Pimento and Cheese Sandwich

A sandwich spread made from ground eggs, cream cheese, pimentos, and seasonings, cooked with egg, butter, flour, vinegar, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pimento and Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Grind the hard-boiled eggs, cream cheese, pimentos, and salt in a food chopper.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the beaten egg, butter, and flour over low heat.

  3. Add vinegar, sugar, and cream or milk, stirring until thick.

Finish

  1. Let the mixture cool before spreading it on 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream cheese + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese
Adds richness and a creamy base for the spread.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they cook and add body to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cooked sauce so it holds together when spread.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the cooked sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softens the sauce to a smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Stirring the cooked sauce until thick. Flour thickens only as the liquid heats and stirs evenly over low heat. Cooking too fast or leaving it unstirred can scorch or lump the sauce, and beaten egg can curdle if it gets too hot.

“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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