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Egg and Cucumber Sandwiches

A sandwich made with a creamy egg yolk mixture, cucumber slices, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 456 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg and Cucumber Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs through a sieve.

  2. Season the yolks with pepper and celery salt.

  3. Add a pinch of curry powder and a few drops of tarragon vinegar.

  4. Pound the mixture in a mortar, then add enough whipped cream to form a soft paste.

Assemble the sandwiches

  1. Spread the mixture on thin slices of buttered bread.

  2. Top with very thin slices of cucumber and cover with more slices of buttered 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. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Tarragon + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks form the creamy body of the filling once mashed and seasoned.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and softness, turning the mashed yolks into a spreadable paste.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds a small acidic brightness that lifts the rich egg yolk flavor.
Buttered bread
Butter keeps the bread from soaking up moisture from the filling and cucumber.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and freshness against the soft filling.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture to a soft paste. Adding the whipped cream gradually while pounding helps the yolks blend smoothly without becoming greasy or lumpy. Enough cream gives a spreadable texture, but too much makes the filling runny and soggy on the bread.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, celery, tarragon, vinegar, cream, bread):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, celery, tarragon, vinegar, cream, 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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