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Fish Sandwiches

A sandwich made with lobster meat, butter, cayenne, vinegar, and cochineal, served on fried bread rounds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Fish Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the tin of lobster and drain it well.

  2. Dip the slices of bread briefly in hot water, then cut out rounds the size of a five-shilling piece and a shilling.

Fry and dry the bread

  1. Fry the bread rounds in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Let the fried bread cool and dry completely.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pound the lobster meat with butter, salt, cayenne, and a few drops of cochineal in a mortar.

  2. Spread the lobster mixture on the larger bread rounds and top with the smaller rounds.

  3. Garnish with the lobster claws and serve on a doily or dish paper.

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. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lobster + tarragontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Butter + tarragontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,572 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster
Provides the main savoury filling and flavour of the sandwich.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, binding the pounded lobster into a smooth spread.
Bread
Forms the crisp base and top that hold the lobster filling.
Cochineal
Adds a red colour to the lobster mixture.

The step that matters

Fry and dry the bread completely. Frying crisps the bread and removing its moisture keeps it firm. Spreading the filling on bread that is still damp lets moisture soften it and makes the sandwiches soggy.

Swap the tarragon

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

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

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