Name: Peanut and Olive Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ box peanut butter; 12 olives, stoned and minced; lemon juice to taste; salt to taste

Why it works: Peanut and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,027 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Peanut and Olive Sandwiches

Ingredients

½ box peanut butter
12 olives, stoned and minced
lemon juice to taste
salt to taste

Directions

In a bowl, combine the peanut butter and minced olives.
Season the mixture with lemon juice and salt.
Spread the mixture onto slices of bread to make sandwiches.
Cut into desired shapes and serve.

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.

Peanut + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,027 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Peanut + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,754 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Peanut butter: Provides the main body, richness and fat that make the filling spreadable.
Olives: Add salty, briny flavor and a firm bite that contrasts with the smooth peanut butter.