Name: Brown Bread Sandwiches
Ingredients: thin slices of brown bread; 1 large egg-sized piece of Roquefort cheese; 2 teaspoons butter; 1 teaspoon Halford sauce; 1 tablespoon port wine

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 ↓

Brown Bread Sandwiches

Ingredients

thin slices of brown bread
1 large egg-sized piece of Roquefort cheese
2 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon Halford sauce
1 tablespoon port wine

Directions

Spread the Roquefort cheese on the brown bread slices.
In a bowl, beat the cheese and butter until creamy, then add the Halford sauce and port wine and beat the mixture well.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Roquefort cheese + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together35 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,499 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Roquefort cheese: Provides the main sharp, salty flavour and creamy texture of the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and smoothness, helping the cheese blend into a spreadable paste.
Port wine: Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharpness of the blue cheese.

“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.