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Picnic Sandwiches

A sandwich made with boiled eggs, potted ham, butter, mustard, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Picnic Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and powder them.

  2. In a bowl, mix the powdered yolks with butter and mustard.

  3. Chop the egg whites very finely and mix them with the potted ham.

Assemble the sandwich

  1. Spread the yolk mixture on slices of bread.

  2. Add the ham and egg white mixture between the slices of 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks add richness and body, while chopped whites add texture to the filling.
Potted ham
Provides the savoury meat base and moisture for the filling.
Butter
Binds the powdered yolks into a smooth, spreadable paste and adds richness.
Mustard
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the rich butter and yolk.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, 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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