Name: Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ pound grated cheese; 1 tablespoon butter; 2 hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed; 1 teaspoon mayonnaise dressing; slices of brown or white bread

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

½ pound grated cheese
1 tablespoon butter
2 hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed
1 teaspoon mayonnaise dressing
slices of brown or white bread

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, butter, mashed egg yolks, and mayonnaise until well combined.
Butter the slices of bread.

Assemble and serve

Spread the cheese mixture on one slice and top with another slice to form a sandwich.
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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese: Provides the main filling body and rich, savory flavor.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and helps the filling spread smoothly.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Add creamy texture and richness to the cheese filling.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds moisture and fat, binding the filling into a spreadable mixture.

“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.