Name: Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon butter; 1 cup grated cheese; ¼ teaspoon paprika; ¼ teaspoon mustard; ½ tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; a few drops onion juice; 2 raw egg yolks; 1 cup thin cream or milk; slices of nut, whole wheat, rye, or white bread

Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the grated cheese, paprika, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and onion juice; stir until melted and smooth.
Beat the egg yolks and dilute them with the cream or milk; add to the cheese mixture.

Assemble

Let the mixture cool, then spread it between slices of 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.

Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese: Melts into the filling to provide the main flavor and creamy body.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help thicken the filling as it sets.
Cream or milk: Dilutes the egg yolks and adds moisture for a smooth, spreadable texture.
Butter: Fat that melts with the cheese to give a smooth, silky filling.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds savory, tangy depth that stands out in the filling.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks to the cheese mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if they meet hot mixture too quickly. Diluting them with cream or milk first and adding them gently helps keep the filling smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cheese, mustard, sauce, egg, cream, wheat):

Chivefits better
Asparagusfits better
Horseradishfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, mustard, sauce, egg, cream, wheat. 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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Cheese Sandwiches