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Savory Sandwiches

A sandwich made with chopped chicken, minced ham, butter, mace, onion juice, oyster liquor, and Graham bread.

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 ↓

Savory Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped chicken, minced ham, butter, ground mace, and onion juice.

  2. Add enough oyster liquor to form a soft paste.

  3. Place the mixture in a saucepan over boiling water and stir until hot.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between thin slices of Graham bread.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and bulk of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the paste stay soft and spreadable.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the chicken filling.
Oyster liquor
Moistens the mixture so it binds into a soft paste.

The step that matters

Stirring the filling over boiling water until hot. Gentle heating over boiling water warms the mixture evenly without scorching the butter and meat. Stirring keeps it from sticking and separating, and the filling should be cooled before spreading so the bread does not turn soggy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, butter, onion, oyster, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, butter, onion, oyster, bread. 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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