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Lunch Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sardines, ham, pickles, mustard, catsup, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lunch Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop sardines, ham, and pickles finely.

  2. Mix with mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, and catsup if desired.

  3. Spread the mixture between slices of buttered bread.

  4. Cut the sandwiches crosswise like jelly cake.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 filling and rich, salty flavor.
Ham
Adds meaty body and savory flavor to the filling.
Pickles
Add acidity and a crisp, tangy bite to balance the rich fish and ham.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the filling.
Bread
Holds the filling together and gives the sandwich its structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the bread, moistening it against the filling.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, pepper, vinegar, bread, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, vinegar, bread, 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.

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