Name: Canned Corn Beef for Sandwiches
Ingredients: 2 cups canned corn beef; 1 tablespoon prepared mustard; 2 tablespoons finely chopped stuffed olives or pickles; Bread for spreading

Why it works: Mustard and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,950 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Canned Corn Beef for Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

2 cups canned corn beef
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
2 tablespoons finely chopped stuffed olives or pickles
Bread for spreading

Directions

Make the spread

Put the canned corn beef through a food chopper.
Add the mustard and chopped olives or pickles; mix well.

Serve and store

Spread the mixture between slices of bread.
Store any leftover mixture in jelly glasses in a cold place for 8 to 10 days.

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.

Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Corn + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,502 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,220 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Corn + beeftop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,028 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

Canned corn beef: Provides the savory, meaty base that the spread is built around.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavor that cuts through the richness of the meat.
Stuffed olives or pickles: Add briny, acidic bite and a chopped texture to the spread.