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Lemon Sandwich Butter

A butter spread flavored with lemon juice, mustard, cayenne pepper, and egg, used on sandwiches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lemon Sandwich Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the butter, mustard, lemon juice, egg, and cayenne pepper together until smooth in a mixing bowl.

  2. Spread the mixture on bread to make sandwiches instead of using plain butter.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat and creamy body, so the spread is rich and easy to spread on bread.
French mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the butter and lemon juice together, and adds sharp flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances its fat.
Egg
Helps emulsify and thicken the mixture, giving it a smoother, more cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Beat until smooth. Beating blends the butter with the mustard, lemon juice, and egg into one emulsion. If the butter is too warm or the mixture is not beaten enough, the fat and liquids can separate, leaving a greasy, uneven spread.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, pepper, egg. 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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