Name: Club Sandwich
Ingredients: Medium thin slices of bread, edges trimmed; Lettuce leaves; Ripe or stuffed olives; Olive oil mayonnaise dressing; Thin slices of bacon; Cold chicken, white meat only, sliced; Thin slices of tomatoes, not too ripe

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Club Sandwich

Ingredients

Medium thin slices of bread, edges trimmed
Lettuce leaves
Ripe or stuffed olives
Olive oil mayonnaise dressing
Thin slices of bacon
Cold chicken, white meat only, sliced
Thin slices of tomatoes, not too ripe

Directions

Toast the bread to a light brown.
Lay one slice of toast down and spread a leaf of lettuce on it.
Add a full layer of chicken, then spread a little mayonnaise.
Top with 2 thin slices of tomato and 2 slices of bacon.
Place another slice of toast on top and repeat the layering with lettuce, chicken, mayonnaise, bacon, and tomato.
Add a final layer of toast on top.
Cut the sandwich from corner to corner to make a triangular shape.
Place two sandwiches on a plate and secure with toothpicks, adding an olive on top of each pick.
Garnish the plate with two tender shoots of celery.

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.

Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,031 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Olive + chickentop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,888 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

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

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, olive, chicken, meat, tomato):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, olive, chicken, meat, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.