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Sabdine and Tomato Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sardine paste and tomato slices, seasoned with pepper, salt, and sugar, served on bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sabdine and Tomato Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the bones from the sardines and pound them with the butter in a mortar.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and season with cayenne, white pepper, and salt.

  3. Skin the tomatoes, slice them thinly, and squeeze lemon juice over them.

  4. Season the tomato slices with pepper, salt, and castor sugar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the sardine paste on slices of bread, place tomato slices between two pieces, and press lightly together.

  2. Trim the edges and cut into squares or oblongs.

  3. Garnish with parsley or small salad before serving.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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 filling, pounded into a smooth paste that spreads easily on bread.
Fresh butter
Pounded with the sardines to add richness and help bind the paste smooth.
Firm ripe tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity, giving the sandwich a fresh, juicy contrast to the rich paste.
Castor sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and lemon juice.
White or brown bread
Thin slices act as the structure that holds the filling together.

The step that matters

Pass the sardine mixture through a fine sieve. Pounding bones and skin leaves a coarse texture; sieving removes remaining fragments so the paste spreads smoothly and does not tear the thin bread.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, tomato, lemon, sugar, bread, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, tomato, lemon, sugar, bread, parsley. 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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