Name: Spanish Pepper Sandwiches
Ingredients: thin slices of white bread; roast beef, cut thin or into small pieces; Spanish peppers, cut into thin strips; coarse sea salt, to taste

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Pepper Sandwiches

Ingredients

thin slices of white bread
roast beef, cut thin or into small pieces
Spanish peppers, cut into thin strips
coarse sea salt, to taste

Directions

Layer roast beef and Spanish peppers between two slices of white bread.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt to taste.

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.

Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

White bread: Provides the soft structure that holds the filling together.
Roast beef: Supplies the main savory protein and bulk of the filling.
Spanish peppers: Adds moisture and a tangy, sharp flavour that contrasts the meat.

“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.