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Sardine Croustade, with Cheese

A baked sardine and cheese mixture served in fried bread crusts, topped with sieved hard‑boiled egg yolks and fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sardine Croustade, with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the sardines in a mortar with the grated cheese.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and chili vinegar.

  3. Add the egg and chopped oysters, mixing well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the mixture into small fried bread crusts.

  2. Cover the crusts with the sieved hard-boiled egg yolks.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes until hot.

Serve

  1. Serve on a folded napkin and garnish with fried 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  4. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines
Provide the main savoury, oily fish flavour and body of the filling.
Egg
Binds the pounded filling together so it holds its shape in the crusts.
Grated cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and helps bind the pounded sardines.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form a soft, crumbly topping that adds richness over the filling.

The step that matters

Baking until just hot. The filling already contains cooked and raw-binding ingredients, so baking only needs to heat it through. Overbaking can dry the filling and toughen the egg, so watch it closely.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, pepper, vinegar, egg, oyster, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, pepper, vinegar, egg, oyster, 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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