Name: Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 lb fresh grated cheese; 3 hard boiled egg yolks; 1 teaspoon salad dressing; buttered bread

Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 lb fresh grated cheese
3 hard boiled egg yolks
1 teaspoon salad dressing
buttered bread

Directions

In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, egg yolks, and salad dressing until well combined.
Spread the mixture thinly on slices of buttered bread.
Roll or fold the bread slices together to form sandwiches.

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.

Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese: Provides the rich, savory body and binds the filling together.
Egg yolks: Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and tangy flavor that loosens the filling for spreading.

“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.