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Ham and Tongue Sandwiches

A sandwich with minced boiled ham and tongue mixed with a butter and mustard sauce, served on bread with lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham and Tongue Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Mix the ground mustard and coarse sea salt with enough cold water to form a stiff paste; add to the melted butter.

  3. Stir in the olive oil, egg yolk, onion juice, and Tabasco sauce.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cold boiled ham and tongue together with the chopped onion pickle.

  2. Combine the meat mixture with the butter mixture and add a few drops of lemon juice.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture on thin slices of bread, placing a lettuce leaf on either side.

  2. Press the bread together firmly.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted fat that carries the mustard and egg yolk, giving the filling richness and a smooth body.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the olive oil and butter, helping the sauce hold together and turn creamy.
Ham
Provides the savory, salty meat flavor that forms the body of the filling.
Tongue
Adds tender, rich meat texture and depth to the filling.
Chopped onion pickle
Adds sharp acidity and crunch that cut through the rich butter and meat.

The step that matters

Combine the meat mixture with the butter mixture and add a few drops of lemon juice.. The emulsion of butter, oil and egg yolk can split if combined too quickly or when too warm. Adding the minced meat and lemon juice gradually keeps the filling smooth and evenly seasoned.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mustard, olive, egg, onion, sauce, ham):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Pumpkinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mustard, olive, egg, onion, sauce, ham. 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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