Name: Lobster-mayonnaise Sandwiches
Ingredients: cold boiled lobster; thick mayonnaise dressing; day-old white bread; butter

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Lobster-mayonnaise Sandwiches

Ingredients

cold boiled lobster
thick mayonnaise dressing
day-old white bread
butter

Directions

Chop the cold boiled lobster finely and moisten it with thick mayonnaise dressing.
Butter each slice of day-old white bread and cut it very thin.
Spread one slice with the lobster mixture and lay another slice over it.
Cut the sandwich into manageable squares, oblongs, or triangles.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Lobster + breadtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together736 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).