Name: Mixed Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 2 teaspoons mustard (optional); ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 beaten egg yolk; cold chicken, tongue, and ham (finely chopped); thin slices of bread (trimmed and buttered); 4 tablespoons melted butter (for ham version); 2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs (chopped); 1 beaten egg yolk (for ham version)

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 Sandwiches

Ingredients

½ cup butter
2 teaspoons mustard (optional)
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 beaten egg yolk
cold chicken, tongue, and ham (finely chopped)
thin slices of bread (trimmed and buttered)
4 tablespoons melted butter (for ham version)
2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs (chopped)
1 beaten egg yolk (for ham version)

Directions

Prepare the filling

Chop cold chicken, tongue, and ham very fine.
Melt the butter and mix in mustard and pepper.
Stir in the beaten egg yolk and combine with the meat.

Assemble the sandwiches

Spread the mixture on thin slices of buttered bread.
For the ham version, chop leftover ham and mix with melted butter, mustard, and pepper. Add chopped hard-boiled eggs and a beaten egg yolk to bind the mixture.
Spread the ham mixture on buttered bread slices.

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).
Mustard + chickentop 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

Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the filling and keeps it spreadable.
Egg yolk: Binds the chopped meat into a cohesive, spreadable mixture.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the ham filling.

Swap the mustard

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

Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Potatofits about as well
Mustardthe original

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