Name: Sardine Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 box of sardines; juice of 1 small lemon; 1 to 2 teaspoons melted butter; a pinch of cayenne pepper; coarse sea salt to taste; bread or crackers

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 ↓

Sardine Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sardines

Drain the oil from the sardines and place them on soft paper to absorb excess oil.
Remove the bones and mince the sardines finely using a silver knife and fork.

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine the minced sardines with lemon juice, melted butter, cayenne pepper, and salt.

Assemble

Spread the sardine mixture onto slices of bread or crackers.
Optionally, add a slice of ripe tomato to each sandwich.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

Sardines: Provide the main savory flavor and the rich, oily body of the filling.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the fishy richness of the sardines.
Melted butter: Adds fat that makes the minced filling smooth and easy to spread.
Bread or crackers: Provides the base that holds the filling and gives the sandwich its crunch or softness.