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Caviar on Toast with Olives

A simple spread of Russian caviar, bread crumbs, and almonds served on toast and garnished with olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,875 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Caviar on Toast with Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Mix together the Russian caviar, soft bread crumbs, and minced blanched almonds to form a paste.

Assemble

  1. Spread the paste on strips of toast.

  2. Garnish the edges with sliced olives.

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. Almond + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

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

  2. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Caviar + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together65 recipes

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

  4. Bread + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  5. Caviar + olivetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Russian caviar
Supplies the main salty, briny flavour of the topping.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture into a spreadable paste.
Blanched and peeled almonds
Add body and a mild nutty flavour to the paste.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (caviar, bread, olive):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against caviar, bread, olive. 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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