Name: Cheese Sandwich
Ingredients: cream cheese; sliced olives; chopped nuts; chopped chow-chow

Why it works: Cream cheese and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,003 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients

cream cheese
sliced olives
chopped nuts
chopped chow-chow

Directions

Make a paste of cream cheese.
Add sliced olives, chopped nuts, and chopped chow-chow.
Spread the mixture on bread.

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.

Cream cheese + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,003 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Olive + nutstop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together186 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Cream cheese + nutstop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together56 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).