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Date Sandwiches

A sandwich made with a soft date spread, lemon juice, hickory nuts, 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 ↓

Date Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the date filling

  1. Mince the Turkish dates finely.

  2. Add a little water and cook in a double boiler until soft.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice and cool the mixture.

Assemble the sandwich

  1. Spread the date mixture on thinly cut bread.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped hickory nuts and cover with buttered bread.

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. Dates + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Dates + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Bread + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkish dates
Provide the sweet, soft body of the filling once cooked down.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the bread and carries flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds a touch of acidity that brightens the sweetness of the dates.
Hickory nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, earthy flavour against the soft filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the dates until soft. Dates need gentle, moist heat in a double boiler so they break down evenly without scorching. Cooling the mixture afterward lets it thicken to a spreadable consistency.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, bread, nuts, 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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