Name: Chicken Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 quart fine-chopped cooked chicken; 40 thin slices of bread (at least 1 day old); 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; ½ teaspoon black pepper; 6 hard-boiled egg yolks; ½ cup milk or cream; ½ cup butter; ½ teaspoon onion juice

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks.
Add the chopped chicken, salt, pepper, milk or cream, butter, and onion juice, then mix well.

Assemble and serve

Spread the mixture between two slices of bread to make sandwiches.
Cut each sandwich into quarters and serve.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Forms the bulk of the filling and gives it its main savory flavor.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Mashed into a rich, creamy base that binds the filling together.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture in the filling.
Milk or cream: Adds moisture so the filling stays soft and spreadable.
Bread: Provides the structure that holds the filling; day-old slices hold up better to moisture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, pepper, egg, milk, butter):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

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