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The Best Sandwiches

A sandwich made with finely chopped cold boiled chicken and tongue mixed with celery salt, cayenne pepper, and mayonnaise, served on buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The Best Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cold boiled chicken and tongue very finely until indistinguishable.

  2. Mix in celery salt, cayenne pepper, and mayonnaise dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread butter on thin slices of bread, then add the chicken and tongue mixture.

  2. Prepare sandwiches just before serving for best results.

  3. For travel, make the dressing less moist and pack it separately.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled chicken breast
Provides the main meaty filling, finely chopped so it blends into a uniform spread.
Cold boiled tongue
Adds rich, savoury meat flavour and a tender texture to the filling.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture, binding the chopped meat into a spreadable filling.

The step that matters

Prepare sandwiches just before serving. Moisture from the mayonnaise dressing soaks into thin bread over time, making it soggy. Assembling close to serving keeps the bread firm and the texture fresh.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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