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Deviled Sardines on Toast

Deviled sardines on toast are a dish of sardine paste mixed with egg yolks and spices, spread on buttered toast and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Sardines on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Remove skins from the sardines and pound them to a paste.

  2. Pound the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and mix with the sardine paste.

  3. Add salt, white pepper, cayenne, and parsley; mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the mixture on buttered toast.

  2. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven until thoroughly hot, then serve.

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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. White pepper + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines
Provide the main savory body and rich fish flavor of the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add creamy richness and body that binds the sardine paste into a spreadable mixture.
Buttered toast
Gives a crisp, golden base and fat that carries the filling.

The step that matters

Heating until thoroughly hot. The filling is already cooked fish and egg, so heating it until it is evenly hot without drying the toast is what makes it safe and pleasant to eat. Watch the toast edges, which brown faster than the filling warms.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, parsley):

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, parsley. 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.

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