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Russian Sandwiches

A sandwich made with Neufchatel cheese, pecans, olives, mayonnaise dressing, and saltines or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pecans and olive work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 716 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Russian Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Rub the Neufchatel cheese into a paste.

  2. Add chopped pecans and finely chopped olives.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Moisten the mixture with mayonnaise dressing until spreadable.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between saltines or crackers and press them firmly together.

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.

  1. Pecans + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together716 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,802 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + pecanstop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Neufchatel cheese
Forms the creamy paste that binds the filling together.
Pecans
Add crunch and a rich, nutty texture against the soft cheese.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavor that cuts through the richness of the cheese.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds moisture and fat so the mixture becomes spreadable.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture until spreadable. Add the mayonnaise dressing gradually. Too little leaves the filling stiff and likely to crack the crackers, while too much makes it runny and soggy against the crisp cracker.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, olive, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, olive, pepper. 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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