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Egg Sandwiches

A sandwich made with mashed hard‑boiled eggs, mayonnaise, French dressing, lettuce, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Egg Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Once the eggs are cold, remove the yolks and mash them finely.

  2. Pass the egg whites through a fine meat chopper.

  3. Mix the chopped whites with the yolks and French dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread mayonnaise on a slice of bread, add a lettuce leaf, then the egg mixture, and top with another slice of buttered bread.

  2. Cut the sandwiches into rounds and serve before the lettuce wilts.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lettuce + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main filling, with mashed yolks and chopped whites giving both creaminess and body.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds moisture and richness, helping bind the egg filling and keep it from drying out.
French dressing
Adds moisture and a tangy, acidic flavour to the egg mixture.
Thin white bread
Provides the structure that holds the filling, with slices enclosing it.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the bread, and a barrier that limits moisture soaking into it.

The step that matters

Serve before the lettuce wilts. Lettuce leaves lose crispness as they sit, and moisture from the egg filling speeds wilting and softens the bread. Serving promptly keeps the sandwich fresh in texture.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, 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.

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