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

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, butter, mashed egg yolks, and mayonnaise dressing thoroughly.

Assemble the sandwiches

Butter slices of brown or white homemade bread.
Spread the cheese mixture on one slice and fold another slice over it.

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.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Add richness and a creamy, crumbly texture to the filling.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and mouthfeel in the filling and on the bread.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds moisture and emulsified fat so the filling spreads smoothly.

“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.