Name: Watercress Sandwiches
Ingredients: watercress; hard boiled eggs; coarse sea salt; black pepper; stale loaf; fresh butter; lemon juice

Why it works: Watercress and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 579 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Watercress Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the watercress and dry it thoroughly with a cloth.
Chop the hard boiled eggs finely and mix with the watercress, seasoning with salt and pepper.
Slice the stale loaf into thin slices.
Spread fresh butter on each slice of bread.
Place the cress and egg mixture between the slices, adding a sprinkle of lemon juice.
Press the slices together firmly and cut into small squares, removing the crusts.

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.

Watercress + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together579 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).