Name: Mixed Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: equal parts Neufchatel cheese and Roquefort cheese; a few drops of Tabasco sauce; unbuttered bread

Why it works: Cheese and roquefort cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Mixed Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

equal parts Neufchatel cheese and Roquefort cheese
a few drops of Tabasco sauce
unbuttered bread

Directions

Pound and mix Neufchatel and Roquefort cheeses together until they form a thick paste.
Add a few drops of Tabasco sauce and mix again.
Spread the cheese mixture on unbuttered 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.

Cheese + roquefort cheesetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together21 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Roquefort cheese + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,987 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,934 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Neufchatel cheese: Provides a soft, creamy base that gives the paste its spreadable body.
Roquefort cheese: Adds a sharp, salty, tangy flavour that stands out against the mild Neufchatel.

“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.