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American Sandwiches

A sandwich made with cold boiled ham or tongue, pickles, mustard, pepper, butter, bread, and thin slices of veal, fowl, or game.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

American Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped ham or tongue, pickles, mustard, and pepper.

  2. In another bowl, stir the softened butter until creamy.

  3. Add the meat mixture to the butter and mix thoroughly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture on a slice of bread, then add a slice of meat.

  2. Top with another slice of bread and repeat until all ingredients are used.

  3. Cut into small shapes for 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. Butter + breadtop 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  5. Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled ham or tongue
Provides the savory, meaty flavor and most of the bulk of the filling.
Butter
Softens into a creamy base that binds the chopped meat and spreads easily on bread.
Pickles
Adds sour, tangy bite that balances the richness of the butter.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that cuts through the fat of the butter.
Bread
Forms the structure that holds the filling and layers together.

The step that matters

Add the meat mixture to the butter and mix thoroughly.. Softened butter blends into a smooth paste only when fully mixed. Thorough mixing spreads the meat and seasonings evenly, so every sandwich tastes the same and the filling spreads without lumps or cold pockets of butter.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, butter, bread, veal. 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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