Name: Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: 3 hard-boiled eggs; 1 tablespoon melted butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 4 ounces good old English cheese, grated; thin slices of buttered 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 ↓

Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

3 hard-boiled eggs
1 tablespoon melted butter
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
4 ounces good old English cheese, grated
thin slices of buttered bread

Directions

Make the filling

Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs to a smooth paste with melted butter.
Season with pepper and salt. Mix in the grated cheese.

Assemble

Spread the mixture on thin slices of buttered bread.
Fold the bread over the mixture to form 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).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs: The yolks form a smooth, rich base that gives the filling its body.
Melted butter: Fat that helps the yolks blend into a smooth paste and adds richness.
Grated cheese: Melts into the filling and adds savory flavor and body.

“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.