Name: Sandwich Filling
Ingredients: ⅓ cup chopped almonds; ⅔ cup chopped celery; ¼ teaspoon salt; mayonnaise; brown bread

Why it works: Almond and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 485 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Sandwich Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine chopped almonds, chopped celery, and salt.
Mix in enough mayonnaise to bind the ingredients.

Assemble

Spread the mixture between slices of brown 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.

Almond + celerytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together485 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,110 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together858 recipes

Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds: Add crunch and a nutty flavor to the filling.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild crunch to the filling.
Mayonnaise: Binds the chopped ingredients together and adds moisture and richness.
Brown bread: Provides the base that holds the filling between its slices.