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Indian Sandwiches

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Bread and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Indian Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare thin slices of bread and cut them into rounds.

  2. Fry the bread rounds until golden brown.

  3. In a bowl, mix the minced chicken with an equal amount of ham or tongue.

  4. Stir in the thick white sauce, curry powder, and lemon juice to taste.

  5. Warm the mixture in a saucepan until heated through.

  6. Place a spoonful of the mixture between every two slices of fried bread.

  7. Arrange the sandwiches on a folded napkin or cut paper and serve hot.

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 + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, chicken, ham, sauce):

  1. Pumpkinfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, chicken, ham, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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