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Sardine Canapes

A spread of mashed sardines and egg yolks seasoned with Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice, served on crackers or bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sardine Canapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skins, bones, heads, and tails from the sardines.

Make the paste

  1. In a bowl, mash the sardines and egg yolks into a paste.

  2. Gradually mix in Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Spread the mixture on crackers or rounds of bread to serve.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 oily, meaty base of the spread.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Bind with the fish and mash into a smooth, creamy paste.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth that balances the richness of the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fish flavor and cuts its richness.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice. Adding liquids slowly to the mashed paste lets them blend evenly, so the spread stays smooth and thick rather than loose or separated.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pumpkinfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, bread. 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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