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Sandwiches, Toasted Cheese

A sandwich made with cheese, mustard, pimento, and butter, toasted until the cheese melts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Sandwiches, Toasted Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Spread butter on 6 slices of bread.

  2. Lay cheese on the other 6 slices.

  3. Sprinkle cheese with mustard and chopped pimento.

  4. Top with the buttered slices and toast slowly on both sides until the cheese melts.

Finish

  1. Cut the sandwiches crosswise.

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a gooey, binding layer that holds the sandwich together.
Bread
Forms the crisp, browned outer structure that contains the melted filling.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the bread brown and crisp during toasting.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Toast slowly on both sides. Low, gentle heat lets the cheese melt fully before the bread over-browns or burns. Rushing with high heat scorches the outside while the centre stays cold and unmelted.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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