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Russian Sandwiches

A cold sandwich made with thin bread, butter, cheese, mayonnaise-olive mixture, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Russian Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut the bread into very thin slices, then into squares.

  2. Butter each piece of bread.

Assemble

  1. Spread a layer of fresh Neuchatel cheese on each piece.

  2. Chop the seeded olives very finely and mix with mayonnaise dressing.

  3. Add a layer of the olive mixture over the cheese.

  4. Press both sides of the sandwiches together.

Serve

  1. Serve on a plate garnished with lettuce leaves.

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 + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Provides the structure and body that holds the sandwich layers together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and keeps the bread from soaking up the fillings.
Fresh neuchatel cheese
Gives a soft, creamy layer that binds to the olive mixture.
Seeded olives
Contribute salty, briny flavor and a textured bite to the filling.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds moisture and richness and binds the chopped olives together.

The step that matters

Chop the seeded olives very finely and mix with mayonnaise dressing.. Fine chopping spreads the olive flavor evenly and gives a smooth, spreadable filling. Coarse pieces can tear the thin bread and make the sandwich fall apart when pressed.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, cheese, olive. 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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