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Cheese Sandwiches

A sandwich made with a cooked egg and cheese mixture spread on toasted or fried bread, topped with ham or tongue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the egg mixture

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, cayenne, and cheese to the pan.

  4. Stir the mixture over the heat until it thickens.

  5. Season with coarse sea salt, omitting if the ham is very salty.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the egg mixture on rounds of thin bread.

  2. Sprinkle the grated tongue or ham over the top and serve.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken as they cook, forming the body of the filling.
Cheese
Melts into the eggs, adding richness and savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over the heat until it thickens. Eggs set over gentle heat; if cooked too hard or too long they turn rubbery and curdle, so stirring keeps the mixture soft and creamy.

“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.

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