Name: Cheese Butter Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 teaspoon anchovy paste or sauce; 6 tablespoons dry, sharp-flavored cheese, grated; 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce; 1 teaspoon made mustard; Slices of buttered bread

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cheese Butter Sandwiches

Ingredients

½ cup butter
1 teaspoon anchovy paste or sauce
6 tablespoons dry, sharp-flavored cheese, grated
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon made mustard
Slices of buttered bread

Directions

Make the spread

Beat the butter until creamy.
Add the grated cheese, mustard, anchovy paste, and Worcestershire sauce, then beat until well blended.

Assemble

Spread the mixture between slices of buttered 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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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).
Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creates a creamy base that carries the other flavours and spreads smoothly.
Cheese: Adds savoury, sharp flavour and body to the spread.
Anchovy paste: Adds a deep savoury note that boosts the overall umami flavour.

Swap the mustard

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

Tomatofits about as well
Mustardthe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, cheese, sauce, 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.