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 ↓
Ham Sandwiches
Ingredients
Directions
Finely chop the cold boiled or corned tongue and cold chicken.
If you don't have a mortar and pestle, use a food chopper to chop the meat two or three times.
Mix the chopped meat with mustard, salt, paprika, and capers.
Moisten the mixture well with mayonnaise.
Finely chop the whites of the hard boiled eggs and add them to the mixture.
Pass the yolks of the hard boiled eggs through a sieve and mix with enough mayonnaise to spread.
Cream the butter and spread it on thin slices of bread.
On one slice, spread the meat mixture and on the other, the egg mixture.
Press the slices together, wrap in oiled paper, and pack.
Ensure the sandwiches are moist; avoid dry sandwiches.
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.
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Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together624 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,192 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,258 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, capers, bread, butter):
- Shallotfits better
- Chivefits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, capers, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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