Name: Sardine Sandwiches
Ingredients: 2 slices of nice toast; 1 lettuce leaf; little sardines; mayonnaise dressing; olives for garnish; 1 lemon, quartered

Why it works: Lettuce and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Sardine Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

Place a lettuce leaf on one slice of toast.
Top the lettuce with little sardines and mayonnaise dressing.
Cover with the second slice of toast and cut into shamrock shapes.

Garnish and serve

Garnish with olives and serve with a quarter of lemon.

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.

Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Toast: Provides the crisp, sturdy base and top that hold the filling together.
Sardines: Supply the rich, savoury flavour and oily texture that make up the filling.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds moisture and fat, binding the sardines and softening the bread.
Lettuce: Adds a cool, crisp layer that contrasts with the soft filling.