Name: Lettuce Sandwiches
Ingredients: Graham bread; Butter; Mayonnaise dressing; Crisp heart lettuce

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 ↓

Lettuce Sandwiches

Ingredients

Graham bread
Butter
Mayonnaise dressing
Crisp heart lettuce

Directions

Cut thin slices from the end of a loaf of Graham bread and butter them before slicing.
Use a cake cutter to cut these slices into rounds.
Spread each round with mayonnaise dressing.
Enclose a leaf of crisp heart lettuce between every two rounds.
Trim off the projecting edges of the lettuce 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + lettucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,287 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).