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Cheese and Pepper Sandwiches

A sandwich made with cream cheese, sweet mango peppers, mayonnaise, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mango and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 471 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cheese and Pepper Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Scald the sweet mango peppers to remove the biting taste.

  2. Drain and chill the peppers on ice for a few hours.

  3. Wipe the peppers and mince them.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the cream cheese and minced peppers into a smooth paste.

  2. Add the mayonnaise and mix well.

  3. Spread the mixture on lightly buttered bread slices.

Assemble

  1. Assemble the sandwiches and cut as desired.

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. Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together471 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mango + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Cream cheese
Provides a creamy, smooth base that carries the filling and keeps the sandwich moist.
Sweet mango peppers
Supply the main flavor and a mild sweetness that stands out against the rich cream cheese.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, loosening the paste so it spreads easily and stays soft.

The step that matters

Scalding the sweet mango peppers. Brief scalding softens the sharp, biting compounds in the peppers. Too little heat leaves the filling harsh, while overcooking would soften the peppers too much and dull their texture.

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, pepper, butter, bread):

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Pineapplefits about as well
  3. Mangothe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, pepper, butter, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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