Name: Caviar Sandwiches
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons caviar; 1 tablespoon salad dressing; ½ teaspoon chopped onions; juice of ½ lemon; slices of white or rye bread

Why it works: Lemon and rye work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Caviar Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, mix the caviar, salad dressing, chopped onions, and lemon juice.
Spread the mixture between slices of white or rye 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.

Lemon + ryetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together119 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Onion + ryetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,646 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Caviar + oniontop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together46 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Caviar + lemontop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together92 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Caviar: Provides the salty, briny flavour that defines the sandwich.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and creaminess so the filling spreads and binds.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich caviar and dressing.