Name: A Relish
Ingredients: 1 package cream cheese; ⅓ cup stuffed olives, chopped; ½ cup nuts, chopped; 2 tablespoons butter, softened; 1 hard boiled egg, chopped

Why it works: Cream cheese and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,746 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

1 package cream cheese
⅓ cup stuffed olives, chopped
½ cup nuts, chopped
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 hard boiled egg, chopped

Directions

In a bowl, cream the cheese, adding a little cream if necessary.
Chop the olives, nuts, and egg finely and add to the cheese.
Mix in the softened butter until well combined.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Cream cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cream cheese + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together910 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Olive + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together10,128 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + eggtop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together118,511 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Cream cheese + nutstop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together56 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese: Forms the creamy base that holds the other ingredients together.
Butter: Adds richness and a smoother, spreadable texture.
Stuffed olives: Contributes salty, briny flavor and chopped texture.
Nuts: Add crunch that contrasts with the soft cheese.
Hard boiled egg: Adds body and a mild savory flavor to the spread.

Flavor stand-ins for the nuts

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

Pecansbetter flavor fit
Walnutbetter flavor fit
Peasbetter flavor fit
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, olive, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.