Name: Saedine and Ham Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 can sardines, minced; ½ cup cold boiled ham, minced; butter; sliced bread

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 ↓

Saedine and Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 can sardines, minced
½ cup cold boiled ham, minced
butter
sliced bread

Directions

Prepare the filling

Mince the sardines finely.
Mix the minced sardines with the minced cold boiled ham.

Assemble

Spread the mixture over thinly sliced and slightly 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).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines: Provide the main savoury, oily flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Cold boiled ham: Adds meaty body and mild savouriness that mellows the strong fish flavour.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and keeps the bread from soaking up moisture from the filling.

“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.