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An Indian Sandwich

A sandwich with cooked chicken, ham, anchovies, curry‑velouté sauce, and lemon, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

An Indian Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chicken, ham, and anchovies.

  2. In a saucepan, mix the veloute sauce with curry powder and a little water. Heat the sauce over low heat until thickened.

  3. Stir in the chicken, ham, and lemon juice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fry the bread slices in butter until light brown.

  2. Spread the mixture on the fried bread and cover with another slice. Serve the sandwiches hot.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veloute sauce
Forms a thick, creamy base that holds the chicken and ham together.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth to the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and filling.
Butter
Browns the bread in the frying pan, adding flavour and a crisp surface.

The step that matters

Heating the sauce over low heat until thickened. Gentle heat lets the starch in the sauce swell and thicken smoothly. High heat can scorch the sauce or cause lumps, and a sauce that is too thin will make the sandwich soggy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, ham, sauce, bread, butter):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, ham, sauce, bread, butter. 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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