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Sardine and Tomato Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sardines, tomato, egg yolks, butter, and lemon juice or vinegar, served on bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Skin and bone the sardines, then split the sardines 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, and salt and pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare slices of bread.

  2. Spread the bread slices with the tomato mixture.

  3. Place half a sardine on top of each slice.

  4. Cover with another slice of buttered bread.

  5. Press the sandwiches together.

  6. 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 forms the main flavour of the sandwich.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture when sieved into the filling.
Tomatoes
Contribute moisture and gentle acidity to the spread.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the fish and tomato flavours.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps bind the spread and keep the bread from soaking.

The step that matters

Pass the tomatoes and egg yolks through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks down the tomato and yolk into a smooth, even paste. Lumps or large tomato pieces would make the spread watery and uneven, and could soak into 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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