Name: Ribbon Sandwich
Ingredients: 1 small can pimentos, chopped; Boiled dressing; Lettuce leaves; 4 slices of bread, cut 1 inch thick; Butter

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 ↓

Ribbon Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the chopped pimentos with boiled dressing.
Butter both sides of the bread, except the bottom of the lower slice and the top of the upper slice.
Layer the ingredients like a cake, using two layers of pimentos and one layer of lettuce or two layers of lettuce and one layer of pimentos.
Spread salad dressing on the lettuce leaves to help them stick.
Make the sandwiches 1 hour before serving.
Trim off the crusts and slice the sandwiches like a layer cake before serving.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lettuce + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lettuce + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,287 recipes

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