Name: Bread Boxes
Ingredients: Bread slices, 3 inches thick; Softened butter; Filling of choice (creamed meat, vegetables, oysters, chicken, sweetbreads, salmon, asparagus, mushrooms, or peas)

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 ↓

Bread Boxes

Ingredients

Bread slices, 3 inches thick
Softened butter
Filling of choice (creamed meat, vegetables, oysters, chicken, sweetbreads, salmon, asparagus, mushrooms, or peas)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cut bread slices into cubes, 3 inches thick.
Use a fork to remove crumbs from the center, forming a box.
Spread softened butter on the sides of each box.
Place the boxes on an inverted pan in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until crisp and golden brown.
Fill the boxes with your choice of filling.

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 + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).