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Mustard and Cress Sandwiches

A sandwich made with buttered brown bread, potted meat, minced mustard, cress, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Mustard and Cress Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut thin slices of Hovis or brown bread.

  2. Butter the slices well and season with cayenne and a little salt.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread potted meat on the buttered slices, then add minced mustard and cress.

  2. Cover with another slice of bread, spread with butter and potted meat.

  3. Press firmly down, trim the edges, and cut into diamonds and triangles.

  4. Arrange them in a circle on a folded napkin and garnish with a bunch of mustard and cress in the center.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + mustardtop 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

Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and keeps the bread from soaking up the filling.
Potted meat
Provides the savoury filling that gives the sandwich its main flavour and body.
Brown bread
Gives the sandwich its sturdy structure and a nutty, earthy flavour.
Mustard and cress
Adds a peppery, fresh bite that contrasts with the rich filling.

The step that matters

Butter the slices well. A generous, even layer of butter forms a fat barrier that keeps moisture from the filling soaking into the thin bread, so the sandwiches stay fresh and the slices hold together when cut.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, meat. 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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