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Olive Sandwich

A sandwich made with a spread of olives, cheese, egg yolks, and butter on buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Olive Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped olives, grated cheese, egg yolks, melted butter, salt, pepper, and celery salt. Mix until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture on buttered slices of bread.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and serve.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Olives
Provide the main flavour and salty, briny character of the filling.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and fat, helping bind the filling and give it a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Rubbed smooth, they add richness and a creamy body that holds the spread together.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture, making the spread smooth and easy to spread on bread.

The step that matters

Rub the egg yolks to a smooth paste. Lumps of yolk stay dry and grainy in the spread. Pressing the cooked yolks until smooth lets them blend evenly with the butter and cheese for a uniform texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, cheese, egg, butter, pepper, 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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