Name: Pepper Filling for Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 can Spanish peppers, chopped fine; 1 can Red Deviled ham; enough salad dressing to spread; butter for spreading; slices of bread

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Pepper Filling for Sandwiches

seventy-five sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

Mix the chopped Spanish peppers and red deviled ham with enough salad dressing to create a spread.

Assemble the sandwiches

Spread butter on one slice of bread and salad dressing on another.
Place the filling between the two slices of bread.
Repeat to make a total of seventy-five sandwiches.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Spread + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together236 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish peppers: Provide the main flavor and a tangy, slightly sweet bite to the filling.
Red deviled ham: Adds savory, meaty richness and body to the filling.
Salad dressing: Binds the chopped ingredients into a spreadable filling and adds moisture and tang.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the bread and helps keep it from soaking up moisture.

“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.