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Pimento and Cheese Sandwiches

A sandwich made with pimentos, walnuts, cream cheese, and mayonnaise spread between buttered bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pimento and Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop together the pimentos, walnuts, and cream cheese.

  2. Add the mayonnaise and mix well.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture thickly between thinly buttered slices of 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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Walnut + cream cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. 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 holds the filling together and keeps it spreadable.
Mayonnaise
Adds moisture and richness so the cheese mixture blends into a smooth spread.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a mild nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft filling.
Pimentos
Contribute sweet, mildly tangy flavor and moisture to the filling.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, bread, butter. 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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