Skip to main content
Bread

Dutch Lunch Sandwich

A sandwich with thinly sliced onion, French dressing, black bread, smoked sturgeon or whitefish, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,676 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Dutch Lunch Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut very thin slices from the center of the onion and soak them in ice water for 1 hour.

Assemble

  1. Dry the onion slices, dip them in French dressing, and place them on the black bread.

  2. Top each slice with shredded smoked sturgeon or whitefish and dust lightly with paprika.

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. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  2. Bread + sturgeontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together94 recipes

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

  3. Onion + sturgeontop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together90 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White onion
Thin slices provide a crisp, mild, aromatic layer on the bread.
French dressing
Adds moisture, sweetness and acidity that flavour the onion slices.
Black bread
Serves as the base that holds the toppings.
Smoked sturgeon or whitefish
Provides the smoky, savoury fish flavour at the centre of the sandwich.

The step that matters

Drying the onion slices. Soaking in ice water makes onion slices crisp and milder, but excess water left on them would dilute the French dressing and make the black bread soggy. Drying them well lets the dressing cling and keeps the bread firm.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sturgeon. 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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipesWheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipes