Name: Cheese and Olive Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 small roll of cream cheese; 6 olives, stoned and chopped fine; a dash of cayenne pepper; thin slices of white bread

Why it works: Olive and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,091 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Cheese and Olive Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 small roll of cream cheese
6 olives, stoned and chopped fine
a dash of cayenne pepper
thin slices of white bread

Directions

Make the filling

Beat the cream cheese until soft.
Mix in the chopped olives and cayenne pepper.

Assemble and cut

Spread the mixture on thin slices of white bread.
Press the slices together and cut into desired shapes.

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.

Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cream cheese + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,003 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together166 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese: Provides a soft, creamy base that binds the filling and spreads easily on bread.
Olives: Add salty, briny flavour and moisture to the creamy filling.
White bread: Forms the structure that holds the filling and gives the sandwich its shape.

The step that matters

Beat the cream cheese until soft. Cream cheese that is still cold or firm will not blend evenly with the chopped olives and spice, and it will tear the bread when spread. Softening it first gives a smooth, spreadable filling.

“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.

Cornbread345 recipes

Bread Pudding336 recipes

Nut Bread109 recipes

Wheat Bread65 recipes

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Cheese and Olive Sandwiches