Name: Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: 4 hard boiled eggs; 1 ½ cups grated cheese; salad dressing; lemon juice; bread

Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the whites and mash the yolks of the hard boiled eggs.
Add the grated cheese, salad dressing, and lemon juice to the eggs.
Spread the mixture on slices of 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.

Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,445 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled eggs: Form the bulk of the filling, with chopped whites and mashed yolks giving a soft, spreadable texture.
Grated cheese: Adds richness and savoury flavour, and helps bind the filling together.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and tang, helping the mashed egg and cheese hold together as a spread.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich egg and cheese flavours.