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Cucumber Spreads

A sandwich of sliced bread topped with cucumber, ham, mayo, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cucumber Spreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thinly slice the bread and butter each slice, then cut off the crusts.

  2. Slice the cucumbers and set aside.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread cucumber slices over 4 pieces of bread.

  2. Add a thin layer of chopped ham over the cucumbers.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over the ham and add a thin layer of Mayonnaise.

  4. Top with the remaining 4 slices of bread and cut into halves or quarters.

  5. Serve with slices of lemon.

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. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the sandwich structure that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps keep the bread from soaking up moisture from the filling.
Cucumbers
Provide the main fresh, moist filling and a crisp texture.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and substance to the filling.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the filling and adds richness.

The step that matters

Slice the cucumbers and set aside. Cucumbers are about 95 percent water, so excess moisture can soften the bread. Slicing them thinly and letting them drain briefly helps keep the sandwich crisp.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, ham, 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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