Name: Cheese Sandwich
Ingredients: 3 ounces good rich cheese, cut into small pieces; 1 ounce butter; 1 teaspoon made mustard; 2 boned anchovies; 2 slices brown bread, buttered; Thin slices of salt beef, ham, or tongue; Green parsley for garnish

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients

3 ounces good rich cheese, cut into small pieces
1 ounce butter
1 teaspoon made mustard
2 boned anchovies
2 slices brown bread, buttered
Thin slices of salt beef, ham, or tongue
Green parsley for garnish

Directions

Make the paste

In a mortar, combine cheese, butter, mustard, and anchovies.
Pound the ingredients to a smooth paste.

Assemble and serve

Spread the paste between the buttered slices of brown bread.
Layer thin slices of salt beef, ham, or tongue on top.
Cut the sandwiches into pretty shapes.
Arrange on a napkin garnished with green parsley.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 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

Cheese: Melts into the paste and gives it rich, savoury flavour and body.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the paste smooth and spreadable and keeps it moist.
Anchovies: Provide a salty, savoury depth that stands out in the cheese paste.
Mustard: Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, mustard, bread, beef):

Capersfits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits about as well
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, mustard, bread, beef. 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.