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Sandwiches a LA Wellington

A sandwich of minced beef, mutton or veal, olives, capers, marinated tuna, egg yolks, and cayenne pepper on bread, garnished with endive, prawns, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and endive share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 32 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sandwiches a LA Wellington

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Finely mince the cold beef, mutton, or veal, olives, capers, and marinated tuna fish using a mincing machine.

  2. Add the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and a little cayenne pepper, then pass the mixture through a coarse wire sieve.

Assemble the sandwiches

  1. Spread the puree on thin slices of brown bread.

  2. Cover with another slice and press together.

  3. Use a round fancy cutter to stamp out the sandwiches.

  4. Pass the hard-boiled egg whites through a coarse wire sieve and cover the sandwiches with it.

Serve

  1. Arrange the sandwiches in a circular row on a plate, placing seasoned endive or another crisp salad in the center.

  2. Garnish with prawns and freshly picked parsley.

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. Capers + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + endivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef, mutton, or veal
Provides the main body and savory bulk of the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Break down into a smooth, rich paste that binds the filling together.
Marinated tuna fish
Adds a concentrated, salty, oily flavor to the filling.
Capers
Add sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich filling.
Turned olives
Contribute salty, briny flavor and a firm texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Passing the filling through a coarse wire sieve. Pressing the mixture through the sieve breaks it into an even, spreadable purée. Under-sieving leaves lumps that tear the thin bread when spread and cut.

Swap the endive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, olive, capers, fish, egg, pepper, bread):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Endivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, olive, capers, fish, egg, pepper, 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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