Name: Rolled Sandwich
Ingredients: 6 dill pickles; dash of cayenne pepper; ½ lb boiled ham; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 sandwich loaf

Why it works: Dill and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,630 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rolled Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the sandwich loaf into 6 lengthwise slices.
Grind the boiled ham finely and mix it with mayonnaise and salt.
Spread the ham mixture on each slice of bread.
Place a dill pickle at one end of each slice and roll it up.
Wrap each roll in a wet napkin and refrigerate overnight.
The next morning, cut each roll into ¼ inch slices crosswise.

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.

Dill + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + hamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Dill + hamtop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together13 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).