Name: Mixed Meat Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 pint cold ham, tongue, and chicken, chopped fine; ½ cup melted butter; 1 tablespoon salad oil; 1 tablespoon mustard (optional); 1 yolk of a beaten egg; pepper to taste; bread, cut thin and buttered

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 ↓

Mixed Meat Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 pint cold ham, tongue, and chicken, chopped fine
½ cup melted butter
1 tablespoon salad oil
1 tablespoon mustard (optional)
1 yolk of a beaten egg
pepper to taste
bread, cut thin and buttered

Directions

Prepare

Chop the cold ham, tongue, and chicken finely.

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix the chopped meat with melted butter, salad oil, mustard (if using), beaten egg yolk, and pepper.

Assemble

Spread the mixture on thinly sliced, 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,192 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold ham, tongue, and chicken: Provides the main meaty filling and savoury flavour.
Melted butter: Adds fat and richness, keeping the filling moist and spreadable.
Egg yolk: Acts as a binder that helps hold the chopped meat together.
Bread: Forms the sandwich base that holds the filling.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, chicken, butter, egg, pepper, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Potatofits about as well
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, chicken, butter, egg, pepper, 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.