Name: Open Sandwiches
Ingredients: thick slices of brown or white bread; cream cheese; cream or salad dressing; finely chopped nuts; cress; parsley; pimento; olives; radish slices

Why it works: Parsley and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,649 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Open Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the bread into thick slices.
Remove the crust and cut into fancy shapes.
Mix cream cheese with cream or salad dressing to form a paste and spread it on the bread.
Dip the sandwiches in finely chopped nuts.
Garnish with cress, parsley, pimento, olives, or radish slices.

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.

Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + radishtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together120 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Olive + radishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together164 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cream cheese + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,003 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cream cheese, cream, nuts, parsley, olive):

Spinachfits better
Potatofits better
Lettucefits better
Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream cheese, cream, nuts, parsley, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.