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Auto Sandwiches

A sandwich made with chopped ham, pickles, mustard, melted butter, and rye bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and rye share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Auto Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the ham using a food chopper.

Make the filling

  1. Add pickles, mustard, and melted butter to the ham, then mix until smooth.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between thinly cut slices of rye bread.

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. Mustard + ryetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Rye + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the savory meaty base and bulk of the filling.
Pickles
Adds acidity and sharp flavor that cuts through the rich ham and butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture so the filling spreads smoothly and stays rich.
French or german mustard
Contributes sharp heat and tang that brightens the filling.
Rye bread
Provides a sturdy, slightly sour structure to hold the filling.

The step that matters

Mix until smooth. If the mixture is not blended well, the melted butter may stay in pools and the filling can be greasy or uneven. Thorough mixing emulsifies the fat with the moist pickles and mustard, giving an even, spreadable texture.

“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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