Name: Cheese Sandwich
Ingredients: 2 hard-boiled egg yolks; 1 tablespoon coconut butter; 1 tablespoon olive oil or peanut butter; 3 tablespoons grated cream cheese; a pinch of salt; slices of bread; lettuce, parsley, or watercress leaves

Why it works: Olive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients

2 hard-boiled egg yolks
1 tablespoon coconut butter
1 tablespoon olive oil or peanut butter
3 tablespoons grated cream cheese
a pinch of salt
slices of bread
lettuce, parsley, or watercress leaves

Directions

Blend the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with coconut butter, olive oil or peanut butter, cream cheese, and salt.
Spread the mixture on slices of bread.
Top with lettuce, parsley, or watercress leaves.

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.

Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Coconut + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,672 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + cream cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,747 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks: Provide the creamy, rich body that forms the spread.
Cream cheese: Adds tang and creaminess to the spread, helping it hold together on bread.
Coconut butter: Adds fat for a smooth, spreadable texture and rich mouthfeel.
Olive oil or peanut butter: Adds fat and moisture so the yolk mixture blends into a spread.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, coconut, butter, olive, cream cheese, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Tomatofits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, coconut, butter, olive, cream cheese, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.