Name: Tasty Sandwiches
Ingredients: 4 cups tasty cheese; 1 onion (size of walnut); a dash of cayenne pepper; ¾ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon paprika; 1 medium cucumber; 2 hard cooked eggs; 1 tablespoon melted or creamed butter

Why it works: Walnut and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 380 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tasty Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

Chop the onion and cucumber finely in a chopping bowl.
Run the hard cooked eggs through a ricer or sieve and add to the chopped mixture.
Mix in the cheese, cayenne pepper, salt, and paprika. Finally, add the melted or creamed butter and mix everything together.

Assemble

Spread the mixture on bread to make sandwiches.

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.

Walnut + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,991 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Tasty cheese: Provides richness and savory flavor, and binds the filling together as it softens.
Hard cooked eggs: Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and moisture, helping the filling spread smoothly and feel rich.
Cucumber: Adds moisture and fresh, crisp texture to the filling.
Onion: Adds sharp aroma and pungent flavor to the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, walnut, pepper, cucumber, egg, butter):

Capsicumfits better
Lettucefits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, walnut, pepper, cucumber, egg, butter. 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.