Name: Pea-nut Sandwiches
Ingredients: fresh-roasted pea-nuts; melted butter; coarse sea salt; cayenne pepper or paprika; brown or white bread

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Pea-nut Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Skin the fresh-roasted pea-nuts and pound them finely.
Mix the pea-nuts with melted butter to form a paste.
Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper or paprika.
Spread the mixture between thin squares, triangles, or bars of brown or white 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Nuts + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together174 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Nuts + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,291 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).