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Sausage Sandwiches

A sandwich made with boiled sausages, buttered Graham bread, lettuce, and cucumber pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sausage Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sausages

  1. Cook the sausages in enough water to cover them until the water evaporates and they are dry.

  2. Let the sausages cool, then cut them into the thinnest possible slices.

Prepare the bread

  1. Slice the Graham bread thinly.

  2. Butter the sliced bread on the loaf.

Assemble the sandwich

  1. Place a lettuce leaf on each slice of bread.

  2. Place a slice of sausage on each slice of bread.

  3. Place a thin slice of cucumber pickle on each slice of bread.

  4. Top with another buttered slice of bread to complete the sandwich.

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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Bread + cucumbertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cucumbertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,185 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Link sausages
Provide the savory, meaty filling that forms the main body of the sandwich.
Graham bread
Provides the base and top layers that hold the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the bread and keeps it from soaking up the filling.
Cucumber pickle
Adds acidity and crisp tang that contrasts with the rich sausage.

The step that matters

Cook the sausages until dry. Simmering in water and then letting it evaporate leaves the sausages dry, so they do not make the bread soggy. Cooling before slicing keeps the thin slices firm and clean.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, lettuce. 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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