Name: Egg Sandwiches
Ingredients: 4 hard boiled eggs; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 teaspoon vinegar; 2 tablespoons soft butter; 2 tablespoons pickles, chopped fine; 2 tablespoons deviled meat or minced ham, tongue, or chicken; 8 slices white bread or finger rolls

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Egg Sandwiches

Ingredients

4 hard boiled eggs
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 tablespoons soft butter
2 tablespoons pickles, chopped fine
2 tablespoons deviled meat or minced ham, tongue, or chicken
8 slices white bread or finger rolls

Directions

Make the filling

Chop the hard boiled eggs and season with salt, cayenne pepper, and vinegar.
Mix the eggs to a paste with soft butter.
Add chopped pickles and deviled meat or minced ham, tongue, or chicken.

Assemble

Spread the mixture between slices of white bread or finger rolls.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

Hard boiled eggs: Form the bulk of the filling, giving it body and a creamy base once mashed.
Soft butter: Binds the chopped eggs into a smooth paste and adds richness.
Vinegar: Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich egg and butter.
Pickles: Add crunch and a tangy, acidic bite to the filling.
Deviled meat or minced ham, tongue, or chicken: Adds savory, meaty flavor and substance to the filling.

“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.