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Cheese and Celery Sandwiches

A sandwich made with a stiff paste of cream and cheese spread on bread, topped with minced celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese and Celery Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Whip the heavy cream until it forms soft peaks.

  2. Add enough freshly grated cheese to the cream to create a stiff paste.

Assemble

  1. Spread the cheese mixture onto slices of bread.

  2. Sprinkle the finely minced celery on top.

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

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

  2. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  3. Bread + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Cheese + celerytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Whipped to soft peaks, it gives the filling a light, airy body that spreads easily.
Freshly grated cheese
Stiffens the whipped cream into a paste and adds rich, savoury flavour.
White celery stalks
Adds a crisp, fresh crunch and mild savoury bite to the filling.

The step that matters

Whipping the cream to soft peaks. Under-whipped cream stays runny and will not hold the grated cheese into a stiff paste. Over-whipping past soft peaks can turn cream grainy and cause it to separate, so stop as soon as soft peaks form.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Pepperfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cheese, 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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