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Egg Sandwiches

A sandwich made by mashing hard‑boiled eggs with olive oil, vinegar, mustard, Tabasco, salt, pepper, and chopped egg whites, then spread on graham bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mash the yolks of hard-boiled eggs into a powder.

  2. Moisten the yolks with ½ cup of olive oil and a few drops of vinegar, then work to a paste.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and French mustard to taste, along with 1-2 drops of Tabasco sauce.

  4. Chop the whites of the eggs into a coarse powder and mix with the yolk paste.

Assemble

  1. Adjust seasoning if necessary before spreading on slices of graham bread.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the yolk paste and chopped whites that form the bulk of the filling.
Olive oil
Adds moisture and richness, turning the mashed yolks into a smooth paste.
French mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the yolks and oil.
Vinegar
Adds a light acidity that brightens the flavour of the yolk paste.

The step that matters

Working the yolks into a paste with the oil. Yolks must be fully broken down and emulsified with the oil gradually; adding oil too fast or leaving lumps gives a greasy, grainy filling rather than a smooth spread.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, pepper, sauce, 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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