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Lamb Sandwiches

A sandwich filled with chopped roast lamb, celery, olives, cucumber pickles, nuts, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Lamb Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pass the roast lamb through a meat chopper.

  2. Add the finely chopped celery, olives, cucumber pickles, and nuts, then mince all ingredients very fine.

  3. Stir in the mayonnaise until well combined.

Assemble

  1. Butter the slices of bread thinly and spread the mixture on top.

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. Olive + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Celery + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Lamb + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast lamb
Provides the main meaty body and bulk of the filling.
Mayonnaise
Binds the chopped ingredients together and adds moisture and richness.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the filling.
Olives
Contributes salty, briny flavour that cuts through the richness.
Cucumber pickles
Adds tangy acidity and a crunchy bite to the filling.

The step that matters

Mince all ingredients very fine. Fine, even chopping lets the mixture spread smoothly on bread and blend evenly with the mayonnaise. Large pieces would tear the soft bread and make each bite uneven in flavour and texture.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, celery, olive, cucumber, bread):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, celery, olive, cucumber, 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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