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Steamed Bread or Biscuit

A sandwich made by steaming dry bread or biscuits, buttering, and topping with cold meat or ham and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Steamed Bread or Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Steam very dry bread or biscuits for a few minutes until warm.

  2. Cut the bread into even slices of medium thickness.

  3. Spread each slice thinly with butter.

Assemble

  1. Place a thin slice of cold meat or grated ham on one half of the slice.

  2. Add mustard if desired, then place the other half of the slice on top.

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

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Very dry bread or biscuits
Provides the base structure of the sandwich; steaming softens it while keeping it moist and warm.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich layer that keeps the bread from soaking up the filling.
Cold meat
Supplies the main savoury filling and protein of the sandwich.
Grated ham
Provides a salty, savoury filling that spreads evenly through the sandwich.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the butter and meat.

The step that matters

Steam the bread until just warm. Steaming softens the dry crumb so it becomes soft and pliable without turning soggy. Too much steam or time can make the bread wet and fragile, so it is best to stop once it is only warm.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, meat, ham. 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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