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A Cheshire Sandwich

A sandwich made with anchovies, Cheshire cheese, butter, mustard, bread, and a thin slice of ham or other cold meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Cheshire Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine anchovies, Cheshire cheese, and butter in a bowl.

  2. Add mustard to taste and mix until well incorporated.

Assemble and cut

  1. Spread a small amount of the mixture on a slice of white bread.

  2. Place a thin slice of ham or cold meat on top.

  3. Top with another slice of bread, press together, and cut into mouthfuls.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide a salty, savoury flavour that forms the base of the filling.
Cheshire cheese
Adds richness and body, binding the filling into a spreadable paste.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the filling spread smoothly on the bread.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.
White bread
Gives a soft, neutral base that holds the filling together.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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