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Union Sandwiches

A sandwich made with potted veal, anchovy paste, mustard, cress, capers, and anchovy fillets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Union Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the slices

  1. Slice the round loaf into even slices.

  2. Spread one-third of the slices with potted veal.

  3. Spread another third with anchovy paste.

  4. Spread the remaining slices with mustard, cress, and chopped capers.

  5. Season all slices with pepper and a little coarse sea salt.

Assemble and serve

  1. Assemble the sandwiches by placing the anchovy slices at the bottom, followed by the cress slices, and then press the veal slices onto the cress.

  2. Cut the sandwiches into triangles and arrange them in a ring on a dish lined with lace paper.

  3. Garnish with a little mayonnaise and a few fillets of anchovy, if desired.

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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Anchovy + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Capers + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Veal + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Potted veal
Provides the rich, savoury meat filling that forms the main body of the sandwich.
Anchovy paste
Adds salty, savoury depth that contrasts with the mild bread and veal.
Mustard
Adds sharp heat and acidity that cuts through the richness of the veal.
Cress
Adds a fresh, peppery crispness that gives texture between the layers.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, anchovy, capers, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Lettucefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, anchovy, capers, pepper. 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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