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Indian Sandwiches

A sandwich with fried bread and a filling of minced chicken, ham or tongue, thick white sauce, curry powder, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Indian Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the bread into round slices.

  2. Fry the bread slices in oil or butter until golden brown.

  3. In a bowl, mix the minced chicken, ham or tongue, thick white sauce, curry powder, and lemon juice until well combined.

  4. Warm the mixture in a saucepan over low heat.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a spoonful of the mixture between every two slices of fried bread.

  2. Arrange the sandwiches on a folded napkin or cut paper and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Bread + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Thin slices of bread
Provide the crisp, golden outer layers that hold the filling.
Finely minced chicken
Supplies the main savoury body of the filling.
Finely minced ham or tongue
Adds extra meaty flavour and richness to the filling.
Thick white sauce
Binds the minced meats so the filling holds together and stays moist.
Curry powder to taste
Gives the filling its spiced, aromatic flavour.
Lemon juice to taste
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and spices.

The step that matters

Warming the filling over low heat. Gentle heat warms the mixture through without drying it or scorching the thick white sauce, which can stick and burn in a saucepan if heated too fast.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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