Name: Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: large round water crackers; Swiss cheese; Dill pickles

Why it works: Swiss cheese and dill work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

large round water crackers
Swiss cheese
Dill pickles

Directions

Butter one side of each water cracker.
Place a thin slice of Swiss cheese between two buttered crackers.
Serve with dill pickles on the side.

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.

Swiss cheese + dilltop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together48 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Swiss cheese: Melts or softens and adds rich, savory flavor and fat to the sandwich.
Large round water crackers: Provide a crisp, neutral base that holds the filling and adds dry crunch.
Dill pickles: Add acidity and sharp, salty contrast that cuts through the rich cheese.

“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.