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Sardine and Tomato Sandwich

A sandwich made with mashed sardines, butter, spices, and tomato slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sardine and Tomato Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sardine paste

  1. Remove bones from the sardines.

  2. Pound the sardines in a mortar with the butter.

  3. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve.

  4. Season the mixture with cayenne, white pepper, and salt.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Skin the tomatoes.

  2. Slice the tomatoes.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over each tomato slice.

  4. Season the tomatoes with pepper, salt, and castor sugar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the sardine paste on one slice of buttered bread.

  2. Place the tomato slices on another slice of buttered bread.

  3. Press the two slices together lightly.

  4. Trim the edges of the sandwich.

  5. Cut the sandwich into squares or oblongs.

  6. Arrange the sandwich on a plate.

  7. Garnish with 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Canned sardines
Provide the main savoury, oily flavour and the body of the filling.
Fresh butter
Binds the pounded sardines into a smooth paste and adds richness.
Firm ripe tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and fresh juiciness that contrasts with the rich paste.
White or brown bread
Forms the structure of the sandwich and soaks up little moisture when buttered.

The step that matters

Passing the sardine mixture through a sieve. Pounding leaves fibres and small bones that make the paste coarse. Sieving breaks them down further, giving the smooth, spreadable texture the sandwich needs.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, tomato, lemon, sugar, bread, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, tomato, lemon, sugar, bread, parsley. 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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