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Sardine Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sardines, egg yolk, butter, and seasonings on bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,100 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Sardine Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut very thin slices of whole wheat or white bread.

  2. Lightly butter the bread with creamed butter.

Make the filling

  1. Remove skin and bones from the sardines.

  2. Mix sardines with the hard-boiled egg yolk, passed through a sieve.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Add enough olive oil or creamed butter to make it spreadable.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture on half of the buttered bread slices.

  2. Cover with the remaining slices, press together firmly, and cut into squares, triangles, or oblong pieces.

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. Wheat + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Wheat + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines
Provide the main savory flavor and rich, oily body of the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and a creamy, smooth texture when passed through a sieve.
Creamed butter
Adds fat and richness to the bread and helps keep the sandwich moist.
Olive oil or additional creamed butter
Loosens the filling so it spreads easily and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Add enough olive oil or creamed butter to make it spreadable. Fat coats the fine fish and yolk particles, loosening the paste. Adding too little leaves a stiff filling that tears the thin bread, while too much makes it greasy and soggy.

“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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