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Plain Sandwiches

A sandwich made with thinly sliced ham or tongue, thin bread, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Plain Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Trim the fat from the ham or tongue and slice it very thin.

  2. Slice the bread thinly.

Assemble

  1. Spread a generous amount of butter on one slice of bread.

  2. Lay the meat smoothly on the buttered slice.

  3. Press the other slice of bread firmly on top.

  4. Trim the edges neatly.

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

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

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham or tongue
Provides the savory filling that forms the body of the sandwich.
Bread
Provides the soft outer layers that hold the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and keeps the bread from soaking up moisture from the meat.

The step that matters

Spread the butter generously. Butter forms a fat barrier between the bread and the meat. A thin layer lets moisture soak into the bread, making it soggy, so an even, generous coat helps keep the sandwich firm.

“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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