Name: Tuna Fish Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup tuna fish; 1 teaspoon tarragon; 2 teaspoons butter; 1 teaspoon chopped gherkins; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; Salt to taste; Paprika to taste; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; Nutmeg to taste

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tuna Fish Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the tuna fish.
Cream the butter in a bowl, then add the chopped tuna to the creamed butter.
Mix in tarragon, gherkins, lemon juice, salt, paprika, parsley, and nutmeg, then blend the mixture lightly.
Spread the mixture on very thin slices of white 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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tarragon + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tuna fish: Provides the main filling and bulk of the sandwich.
Butter: Creamed into the mixture to add richness and a smooth, spreadable texture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish.
Gherkins: Add tangy, acidic bite that cuts through the richness of the butter.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, tarragon, butter, lemon, parsley):

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Capersfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, tarragon, butter, lemon, parsley. 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.