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Open Sandwiches

A sandwich with bread slices spread with cream cheese and dressing, topped with nuts, herbs, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut the bread into ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Remove the crust and cut into fancy shapes.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Mix cream cheese with cream or salad dressing to form a paste and spread it on the bread.

  2. Dip the sandwiches in finely chopped nuts.

  3. Garnish with cress or 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.

  1. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + radishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together120 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Olive + radishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese
Forms a soft, spreadable paste that holds the sandwich together and adds richness.
Cream or salad dressing
Loosens the cream cheese into a spreadable paste and adds moisture.
Finely chopped nuts
Adds crunch and texture to the outside of the sandwiches.

Swap the radish

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. 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.

“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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