Name: Club Sandwiches
Ingredients: 3 slices of bread, thinly cut; Butter, for spreading; 1 lettuce leaf; Slices of cooked chicken breast; Slices of cooked breakfast bacon; Thin slices of small pickles

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 ↓

Club Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Toast and butter the bread slices.

Assemble

Place a lettuce leaf on the bottom slice of toast.
Add slices of chicken breast on top of the lettuce.
Top with another slice of toast and another lettuce leaf.
Add thin slices of breakfast bacon on top.
Finish with a third slice of toasted bread.
Top the last slice with thin slices of pickles.

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).
Bread + chickentop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,421 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread: Provides the structure that holds the layers together.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the toast brown and taste savoury.
Chicken breast: Supplies the main protein and a mild, meaty body to the sandwich.
Breakfast bacon: Adds salty, smoky flavour and crisp contrast to the soft layers.
Pickles: Adds acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter and meat.