Name: Yum-yum Sandwiches
Ingredients: 2 cup cream cheese or cottage cheese; 2 cup minced ham; White or rye bread; 1 small bunch watercress; Mayonnaise or French dressing (optional)

Why it works: Rye and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Yum-yum Sandwiches

Ingredients

2 cup cream cheese or cottage cheese
2 cup minced ham
White or rye bread
1 small bunch watercress
Mayonnaise or French dressing (optional)

Directions

Make the filling

Pick the leaves from the watercress and cream them into the cheese along with the ham.
Add a little mayonnaise or French dressing to the filling if desired.

Assemble

Spread the mixture between thin slices of unbuttered bread.

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.

Rye + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cream cheese + ryetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Cream cheese + hamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Cream cheese + watercresstop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Ham + watercresstop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together47 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese or cottage cheese: Provides a creamy, moist base that binds the filling together.
Minced ham: Adds savoury flavour and substance to the filling.
Watercress: Adds a fresh, peppery flavour that cuts through the rich cheese.
White or rye bread: Forms the thin slices that hold the filling in each sandwich.

“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.