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A Dressing for Sandwiches

A butter-based dressing with mustard, sweet oil, pepper, salt, egg yolk, and chopped meats for sandwiches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Dressing for Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the butter, mustard, sweet oil, pepper, salt, and egg yolk.

  2. Mix everything together until smooth and refrigerate to cool.

Assemble the sandwiches

  1. Chop the tongue, ham, and cold chicken finely.

  2. Spread the dressing on a slice of bread, add the meat mixture, and top with another slice of bread.

  3. Press the sandwich together firmly and trim the edges for uniformity.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. 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 a smooth, creamy body to the dressing.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the fats and helps bind the dressing into a smooth, stable mixture.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that cuts through the richness of the meats and butter.
Sweet oil
Contributes moisture and smoothness to the dressing.

The step that matters

Refrigerate the dressing to cool before assembling. Chilling firms the butter and emulsified yolk so the dressing stays thick and spreadable instead of running into the bread and making the sandwich soggy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

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