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Devilled Sardines

A dish of sardines served on buttered toast, topped with mustard, breadcrumbs, butter, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Devilled Sardines

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare 6 pieces of buttered toast.

  2. Place 2 split sardines on each piece of toast.

  3. Spread a little French mustard on the sardines.

  4. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of bread crumbs.

  5. Dot with 1 tablespoon of butter in small pieces.

Bake and serve

  1. Place on a pan and bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve with quartered lemons on the dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Split sardines
Provide the main protein and rich, savory flavor of the dish.
French mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that cuts the richness of the sardines.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, lightly browned topping during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that moistens the topping and helps it brown in the oven.
Buttered toast
Gives a crisp base that holds the sardines and topping.

The step that matters

Baking at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes. The topping needs enough heat to brown and crisp without drying out the sardines. Watching the timing keeps the fish moist and the crumbs golden.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, lemon. 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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