Name: Green Pepper Sandwiches
Ingredients: 2 sweet peppers, finely chopped; 1 onion, finely chopped; ¼ cup mayonnaise; Bread slices

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Pepper Sandwiches

Ingredients

2 sweet peppers, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
¼ cup mayonnaise
Bread slices

Directions

Chop the sweet peppers and onion very finely.
Mix the chopped peppers and onion with the mayonnaise.
Spread the mixture between thin slices of bread.

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.

Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 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

Sweet peppers: Provide the main bulk, a crisp texture and fresh, mild flavour.
Onion: Adds sharp aroma and savoury bite that balances the mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, binding the chopped vegetables into a spreadable filling.