Name: Celery and Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: cheese; celery; mayonnaise; butter; bread

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 ↓

Celery and Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Finely chop the cheese and celery together.
Mix in a little mayonnaise.
Spread the mixture between thinly buttered slices of 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.

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).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,110 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cheese + celerytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together647 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).