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Olive and Nut Sandwiches

A sandwich made with pitted olives, chopped almonds, mayonnaise, and sea salt, served on wheat bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,875 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Olive and Nut Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pit and chop the olives.

  2. Chop the almonds.

Assemble

  1. Mix the olives, almonds, mayonnaise, and coarse sea salt in a bowl.

  2. Spread the mixture between slices of wheat bread.

  3. Add slices of boiled tongue if desired.

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. Olive + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

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

  2. Olive + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Almond + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

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

  4. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Olives
Provide the main bulk and briny flavour of the filling.
Almonds
Add crunch and a nutty texture to the filling.
Mayonnaise
Binds the chopped ingredients together and adds moisture and richness.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, wheat, 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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