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Lunch Sandwiches

A sandwich made with grated lean ham, beef tongue, pickle, mustard, butter, and seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Lunch Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the ham and beef tongue.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated meats, chopped pickle, French mustard, pepper, and salt.

  2. Mix in the melted butter until well combined.

Assemble

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

  2. Optionally, use minced ham or tongue without seasoning for a simpler sandwich.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham
Provides the main savory meat flavour and body of the filling.
Beef tongue
Adds a rich, tender meaty texture to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture so the grated meats bind and spread smoothly.
Chopped pickle
Adds acidity and a sharp contrast to the rich meat.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and a mild heat that complements the meats.

The step that matters

Mix in the melted butter until well combined. Butter must be fully incorporated so it coats the grated meat evenly; unevenly distributed fat leaves dry patches and greasy pockets, making the filling hard to spread and inconsistent in texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, pepper, butter, 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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