Name: Pulled Bread
Ingredients: light bread; butter; thin slices of cheese; celery

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 ↓

Pulled Bread

Ingredients

light bread
butter
thin slices of cheese
celery

Directions

Take any kind of light bread after it is baked.
While it is warm, pull it into pieces about the size of a biscuit.
Put the pieces back in the oven and brown them nicely.
Serve warm with butter, thin slices of cheese, and celery.

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).
Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + celerytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,110 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cheese + celerytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together647 recipes

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