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A Cheshire Sandwich

A sandwich made with anchovies, Cheshire cheese, butter, mustard, ham, and white bread.

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

Prepare

  1. Pound the anchovies, Cheshire cheese, and butter in a marble mortar until well combined.

  2. Spread a knife pointful of the mixture on slices of white bread.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a thin slice of ham or cold meat between two slices of bread.

  2. Press the sandwich together.

  3. 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
Add a salty, savory depth that flavors the cheese and butter spread.
Cheshire cheese
Provides rich, savory flavor and body to the spread.
Butter
Binds the mixture into a smooth spread and adds richness.
Ham or cold meat
Adds the main meaty filling between the bread slices.

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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