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Mustard and Cress Sandwiches

A sandwich made with mustard, cress, buttered bread, and salad dressing, seasoned with pepper and salt.

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

Mustard and Cress Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Dip the mustard and cress in a little salad dressing.

  2. Spread the mixture on the buttered bread.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  4. Cover with another slice of bread.

Cut and serve

  1. Cut into sandwiches.

  2. Serve on a doily and garnish with cress.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of butter and dressing.
Cress
Adds a fresh, peppery bite and crisp texture to the filling.
Butter
Coats the bread so the filling is held apart from it and the bread stays less soggy.
Salad dressing
Adds moisture and creaminess that binds the mustard and cress together.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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