Name: Turkish Delight
Ingredients: 3 small square cakes of Philadelphia cheese; 2 butter patties; ½ pint stuffed olives, chopped fine; paprika, to taste; a dash of red pepper

Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turkish Delight

Ingredients

3 small square cakes of Philadelphia cheese
2 butter patties
½ pint stuffed olives, chopped fine
paprika, to taste
a dash of red pepper

Directions

Make the spread

Cream together the Philadelphia cheese and butter until smooth.
Add the chopped olives and mix well.
Season with paprika and a dash of red pepper.

Serve

Spread this mixture on sandwiches as you would butter.

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.

Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,802 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 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

Philadelphia cheese: Provides the creamy base and body of the spread.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, keeping the spread smooth and spreadable.
Stuffed olives: Contribute salty, briny flavour and bits of texture throughout the spread.

“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.