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Fish Sandwiches

A sandwich made with buttered brown bread and a shrimp mixture seasoned with Nepal pepper, tarragon vinegar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fish Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter the slices of brown bread.

  2. Remove the shells from the shrimps and pound them with the remaining butter.

  3. Season the shrimp mixture with Nepal pepper, tarragon vinegar, and coarse sea salt if needed.

Assemble

  1. Spread the shrimp mixture on half of the buttered bread slices.

  2. Top with the remaining slices, trim the edges, and cut each sandwich into four pieces.

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. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Pink shrimps
Provide the main filling, giving the sandwich its savoury flavour and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps bind the pounded shrimp into a spreadable filling.
Brown bread
Forms the structure that holds the filling and gives a firm, slightly sweet base.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich shrimp and butter.

The step that matters

Season the shrimp mixture. Vinegar and salt are added in small amounts, so the balance is easy to miss. Acid brightens rich butter, and salt lifts the shrimp flavour, so taste before spreading.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonthe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

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