Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓
Russian Sandwiches
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Butter one side of the thin slices of bread.
Assemble
Moisten the finely chopped olives with Mayonnaise Dressing and spread on the buttered side of the bread.
Spread Neufchatel cheese on the other side of the bread.
Press the slices together.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,091 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Olive + cheesetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,802 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Neufchatel cheese
- Provides a soft, creamy filling that adds moisture and mild richness.
- Mayonnaise dressing
- Moistens the olives and adds fat and creaminess to the filling.
- Butter
- Adds fat and a thin barrier that helps keep the bread from soaking up moisture.
- Finely chopped olives
- Contributes salty, briny flavor and texture to the filling.
“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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