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Adelaide Sandwiches

A sandwich of boiled curry chicken and ham served between fried stale bread with cheese balls on top.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Adelaide Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the cold chicken and ham into small squares.

  2. Mix the curry paste with the sauce.

  3. Heat the mixture until boiling. Add the ham and chicken to the saucepan. Remove the saucepan from heat.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Prepare the bread and cheese

  1. Cut thin slices of stale bread. Stamp the bread slices into rounds.

  2. Fry the bread rounds in boiling lard or clarified butter until light brown.

  3. Pound equal quantities of grated Parmesan cheese and butter together. Roll the mixture into balls the size of walnuts.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a layer of the cooled meat mixture between two fried bread rounds.

  2. Place a cheese ball on top of each sandwich.

  3. Arrange the sandwiches on a baking sheet.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for five minutes.

  5. Serve on a napkin.

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

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides the savoury meat base.
Curry paste
Supplies the spice and aroma that flavour the filling.
Stale bread
Fried rounds give a crisp, browned structure that holds the filling.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts into the butter to add salty, savoury richness to the topping.
Butter
Binds the cheese into a rollable ball and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fry the bread rounds until light brown. Frying in hot lard or clarified butter seals the surface and builds a crisp, sturdy base. Too little heat leaves the bread greasy and soft, while too much darkens it before it is cooked through.

“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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