Name: Egg Sandwiches
Ingredients: 2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs; 1 tablespoon butter; 2 teaspoons grated cheese; 2 teaspoons tomato puree; additional butter for spreading; hot buttered toast

Why it works: Butter and cheese 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 ↓

Egg Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

Pound the hard-boiled eggs, butter, grated cheese, and tomato puree until smooth.
Melt a lump of butter in a saucepan, add the mixture, and stir until hot.

Assemble and serve

Spread the mixture between slices of hot buttered toast.
Garnish each sandwich with the egg whites and serve hot.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,896 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs: Provide the main body and bulk of the filling.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling become smooth and spreadable.
Grated cheese: Adds savoury flavour and a little richness to the filling.
Tomato puree: Adds concentrated tomato flavour, sweetness and acidity to the filling.