Name: Finnan Haddie Sandwiches
Ingredients: cooked finnan haddie (smoked haddock), skinned, boned, and flaked; salad dressing; buttered bread; small leaf of lettuce

Why it works: Bread and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Finnan Haddie Sandwiches

Ingredients

cooked finnan haddie (smoked haddock), skinned, boned, and flaked
salad dressing
buttered bread
small leaf of lettuce

Directions

Mix the flaked fish with salad dressing to form a paste.
Place a small leaf of lettuce on one slice of buttered bread.
Spread the fish mixture over the lettuce.
Top with another slice of buttered bread.
Press gently together and cut the sandwich in half.

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.

Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Haddock + breadtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together220 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Haddock + lettucetop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).