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Salmon Sandwiches

A sandwich made with buttered bread, cold boiled salmon, tartare sauce, and shredded lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Salmon Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Cut thin slices of bread and butter one side of each slice.

  2. Place a thin layer of boiled cold salmon on the buttered side.

  3. Spread a little stiff tartare sauce over the salmon.

  4. Add a layer of finely shredded lettuce.

  5. Cover with a second slice of bread, buttered side down, and press gently.

Finish

  1. Cut into squares or oblongs and garnish tastefully.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Butter + salmontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Bread + salmontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together941 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

White or brown bread
Provides the structure that holds the filling together.
Butter
Spread on the bread to add richness and keep the bread from soaking up moisture from the filling.
Boiled cold salmon
Provides the main protein and flavour of the filling.
Tartare sauce
Adds moisture, tang and richness to the salmon.
Finely shredded lettuce
Adds a crisp, fresh texture between the salmon and bread.

The step that matters

Spread the tartare sauce thinly and keep it stiff. A stiff sauce stays in place when the sandwich is pressed and cut, while a thin, runny sauce would soak into the bread and make it soggy.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, salmon, sauce. 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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