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American Sandwiches

A yeast-leavened bread sandwich made with lard, eggs, and ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

American Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix sponge dough, lard, warm water, beaten eggs, salt, and flour together.

  2. Let the mixture rise for 2 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into round sandwiches and place them 3 inches apart on a pan.

  2. Let them rise for 1 hour.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Assemble

  1. Slice in half and place a thin slice of fresh boiled ham between the halves.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Flour + hamtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge dough
Starter that gives the bread its fermentation and flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before shaping and baking. Yeast fermentation produces the gas that makes the bread light. Under-rising leaves a dense loaf, while the rise must be finished before baking sets the crumb.

“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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