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Sardine and Tomato Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sardines, tomatoes, egg yolks, lemon juice or vinegar, salt, pepper, and butter on bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sardine and Tomato Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Skin and bone the sardines, then split them in half.

  2. Pass the tomatoes and egg yolks through a fine sieve.

  3. Mix the sieved mixture with a little butter, lemon juice or vinegar, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare slices of bread and spread them with the tomato mixture.

  2. Place a sardine on top of the bread slice.

  3. Cover with another slice of bread spread with butter.

  4. Press the sandwich together.

  5. Serve on a folded napkin garnished with 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines
Provide the savoury, oily fish filling that gives the sandwich its main flavour.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add a creamy, rich body that binds with the tomato into a smooth spread.
Tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and fresh flavour to the spread.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and fish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the spread stick to the bread.

The step that matters

Pass the tomatoes and egg yolks through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks down the tomato pulp and yolk into a fine, smooth texture. Skipping this leaves lumps and watery bits that make the spread soggy and uneven on the bread.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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