Name: Egg and Olive Sandwiches
Ingredients: 3 hard-boiled eggs, yolks only; 4 chopped olives; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; a dust of paprika; 1 teaspoon anchovy essence; bread

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 ↓

Egg and Olive Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, chopped olives, butter, lemon juice, anchovy essence, salt, pepper, and paprika until smooth.
Rub the mixture through a sieve to achieve a fine paste.

Assemble and serve

Spread the paste on slices of buttered bread.
Cut the sandwiches into neat rounds.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks: Provide the rich, creamy body that forms the bulk of the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and smoothness, helping the paste spread evenly and feel silky.
Olives: Contribute briny, savoury flavour and small bits of texture to the paste.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and butter flavours.
Anchovy essence: Adds a deep, salty, savoury note that rounds out the filling.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the filling through a sieve breaks down any remaining lumps of yolk and olive, giving a smooth, fine paste that spreads evenly without tearing the bread.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Egg and Olive Sandwiches