Name: Walnut Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup Swiss cheese, grated; 1 cup English walnut meats, chopped; ½ cup softened butter; coarse sea salt, to taste; cayenne pepper, to taste

Why it works: Swiss cheese and butter work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 413 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Walnut Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 cup Swiss cheese, grated
1 cup English walnut meats, chopped
½ cup softened butter
coarse sea salt, to taste
cayenne pepper, to taste

Directions

Make the spread

In a bowl, mix the grated Swiss cheese and chopped walnuts.
Add the softened butter and mix until it forms a paste.
Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

Assemble

Spread the mixture on bread to make sandwiches.

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.

Swiss cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together413 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,039 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Swiss cheese + meattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together37 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Swiss cheese: Melts into the paste and adds savoury, salty flavour and body.
English walnut meats: Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the creamy spread.
Butter: Binds the cheese and walnuts into a spreadable paste and adds richness.

“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.